Sports Shorts: Weekend of Champions

Princeton teams earned three Ivy League titles in the span of two days in an eventful weekend on the athletics calendar.

On Friday, women’s cross country held off second-place Yale at the Ivy Heptagonals at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, placing three runners in the top six spots. Lizzie Bird ’17 won the individual title, becoming the seventh Tiger woman to win a Heps cross country crown. Seniors Emily de La Bruyere (fourth) and Kathryn Fluehr (sixth) also earned All-Ivy honors.

On Saturday, field hockey’s Maddie Copeland ’16 scored two goals in a 4-0 shutout win over Cornell and the Tigers (6-0 Ivy) clinched at least a share of the Ivy title. Princeton’s Nov. 7 game against Penn (5-1 Ivy) will determine whether the Tigers win the championship outright; the winner also will represent the league in the NCAA Championships.

Women’s soccer completed the title triple with a 2-1 win over Cornell, a victory that, with help from a Harvard-Dartmouth tie, clinched the Ivy championship and earned the Tigers their first NCAA postseason bid since 2012. Tyler Lussi ’17 scored her 13th goal of the season in the Cornell game.

The weekend’s final championship for a Princetonian came after midnight on Sunday when veteran major-league pitcher Chris Young ’02’s Kansas City Royals clinched the World Series title. Young, who pitched four innings in the Royals’ game four win on Saturday, is the first Tiger to earn a World Series ring as a player.

Other highlights for Princeton teams: Women’s volleyball swept Dartmouth and Harvard Oct. 30 and 31, moving up in the Ivy standings to just one match behind first place with four matches remaining. … Football improved to 5-2 with a 47-21 win over Cornell. … Men’s hockey picked up its first win of the young season, topping Maine 3-1 in the Capital City Classic in Trenton.