Four Fall Teams Win Championships, Football Falls Short

With an 8-0 record, including five wins in the Ivy League, Princeton football had a promising start in its bid to win back-to-back league championships for the first time since 1964. But close losses in the season’s final two weeks dashed those aspirations.

At Yale Nov. 12, Princeton’s fourth-quarter comeback fell short in a 24-20 loss. Against Penn at home Nov. 19, the Quakers completed a fourth-and-goal touchdown pass with five seconds remaining to win 20-19. Yale secured the Ivy title with a 6-1 league record.

“Football is a game of inches, it’s a game of one play, it’s a game of seconds,” Tigers quarterback Blake Stenstrom ’24 said after the Penn game. “It’s a brutal part of this game. It definitely comes down to the margins.”

Princeton’s fall athletics season featured four league champions. Men’s cross country won the Ivy Heptagonals Oct. 28 and placed 30th at the NCAA Championships Nov. 19. Field hockey was 7-0 in Ivy play and bowed out of the NCAA Tournament in the first round with a 5-2 loss to Syracuse Nov. 11. Women’s volleyball won its last eight regular season matches and shared the Ivy title with Yale. And men’s water polo repeated as champion in the Northeast Water Polo Conference, winning a program-best 27 games and reaching the NCAA quarterfinals, where it lost to top-ranked USC Dec. 1.