Monday Morning Catch Up

Following up on yesterday's blog note about fans at baseball games, the Princeton rooting section was as loud and having as much fun as ever in the final inning of the rubber game of the Ivy League Championship Series and that should be a clue as to how things turned out. The Tigers got the early jump on Dartmouth and claimed an 8-5 win that clinched the Ivy League championship and the automatic bid to the NCAA's. link

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The news was a little better for the Ivy League co-champion Dartmouth women's lacrosse team. Despite losing to Harvard in the opening round of the conference tournament, the Big Green not only got an at-large invitation to the NCAA Tournament, but it got a home game over a seeded team. Undefeated Albany has a venue conflict and can't host, so the Great Danes will play Sunday in Hanover, where Dartmouth is undefeated this year. link (Bet the Albany coaches are loving that turn of events.)

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The Daily Dartmouth writes that the biggest impact of the incoming class of football recruits will probably be on special teams.

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The Columbia Spectator's Football Year in Review story includes this:

The misfortunes continued for the Lions as they took on Dartmouth in the Homecoming game. Coming into the game having lost the last nine homecoming contests, the team looked ready to take on a traditionally weak Big Green squad. However, after a back and forth game, the final score ended in yet another loss, 24-21, leaving the unusually full home crowd disappointed after Columbia’s offense failed to convert on a late-game drive.

Green Alert Take: How much do you think reading a Columbia writer use the phrase, "traditionally weak Big Green squad" gnaws at former players and longtime followers of the Dartmouth football program that has won more Ivy League titles than any school in the conference?

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The Sports Network has a roundup of spring football games by teams that finished in last fall's Top 25 and it mentions Penn's Conner Scott catching a 50-yard TD pass. Scott is the brother of Dartmouth senior wide receiver Tanner Scott. link

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Harvard senior receiver Marco Iannuzzi was the sixth pick in the 2011 Canadian Football League draft. link

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Former Cornell assistant coach Ron Prince (1998-2000) will have a little extra spending money soon. Fired as head coach at Kansas State after posting a 17-20 record from 2006-08, Prince has been awarded an additional $1.65 million settlement that runs the "termination payment" he received to almost $3.2 million. link Prince is now an assistant line coach with the Indianapolis Colts. link

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New Hampshire isn't on the 2011 Dartmouth schedule but the Big Green's once-and-future opponent does a very nice job of covering its spring football game in this video. Ivy schools could learn something from this professional-looking presentation.

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And finally, our almost 20-year-old Mitsubishi Expo with 187,250 miles on the odometer got better than 32 miles per gallon on the trip home from Princeton yesterday. Yeah, it's a goofy looking little clunker, and it sure doesn't have the pickup to deal with all those lights on Route 1, but it's a keeper.