Ivy League Sports

For all of Princeton’s athletic accomplishments in the decade, the value of its program still came down most often to benefits far less tangible, as explained by softball player Kristin Lamendola: “There are few things in life as intimidating as leaving home for the first time to attend a school like Princeton. Few things are better at easing the transition than being a member of a team. The softball team was my family away from home. We shared our hopes, our dreams, our fears, and occasionally our clothes. Although my entire experience at Princeton was wonderful, nothing will ever compare to the time I spent as a softball player.”

Princeton swimming and diving teams began a series of championship seasons in 1980, when they won the Ivy League and EAIAW championships. Individual stars at the EAIAW that year included Charlotte Tiedemann, who won three breaststroke and two individual medley events, and Beth Mauer, who won two backstroke events. Tiedemann and Mauer also contributed to the first-place finish of the medley relays. At the AIAW national championships, where Princeton finished 15th out of 77 teams in competition, six Tiger swimmers (Tiedemann, Mauer, Nancy Conroy, Ann Habernigg, Pam Phillips, and Ann Huesner) received All-America honors. The team won the Ivy League and EAIAW championships again in 1981 and 1982 and the 400-meter freestyle relay foursome — current Columbia head coach Diana Caskey, Huesner, Betsy Lind, and Liz Richardson — won the AIAW national championship in 1982.

Princeton also continued its reign in squash with a Howe Cup victory in 1981, making it a streak of eight titles in the first nine years of the competition for the Tigers. The 1981 team extended the longest winning streak in women’s sports at Princeton at the time when it added another eight victories in dual meet competition, to extend the program’s run to 34. After subsequent rebuilding years, the team regained the cup in 1989.

A member of that 1989 team, Demer Holleran, is perhaps the most accomplished woman squash player in the sport’s history. A four-time All-Ivy selection and three-time intercollegiate national champion, Holleran remains, in 1999, the number one player in the world and has been the head coach of women’s squash at the University of Pennsylvania since 1991-92. A six-time national champion, Holleran has combined her talents with former Pennsylvania star Alicia McConnell to produce four straight world doubles championships (1996-99). Holleran also was a second team All-Ivy lacrosse goalie during her time at Princeton, despite not having played the sport prior to her arrival at college.

The outdoor track and field team won its second of five straight Ivy League championships in the spring of 1980, and the indoor team won in the winter of 1981, the first event in which an indoor competition was added as a distinct sport with a separate championship. The team also won the indoor and outdoor Ivy championships in calendar years 1982, 1983, and 1989. Sari Chang set two outdoor meet records in 1982 while winning the long jump and 100-meter hurdles. Other stars of the decade included Laura Cattivera, who became just the second woman to win the 1,500- and 3,000-meter races in the same outdoor Heps in 1989, and Lynn Jennings, who, in addition to her cross country Heps title in 1979,

was a three-time first team All-Ivy runner in the fall sport, and who still holds the meet record in the outdoor 5,000-meter race. Jennings has followed up her collegiate success with nine national cross country championships, three world championships, and three Olympic appearances.

After first competing as a varsity team in 1982, the softball team won the Ivy League championship in 1983. Under head coach Cindy Cohen, the team took the Ivy crown again in 1984 and 1985, shared it with Brown in 1986, and regained sole possession of the title for three straight seasons to finish out the decade. (Story, page 77) A particularly outstanding season was in 1985, when the NCAA recognized the team’s play with a regional ranking — a first for both Princeton and the Ivy League (the team later achieved another League first with its appearances in the College Softball World Series in 1995 and 1996). Among many softball stars during this period was Annie Lee, an Academic All-American who was named, along with 1987 teammates Angela Tucci and Linda Smolka, to the All-Region team. Smolka also received All-America honors in 1988.

Other League successes came in several sports. The field hockey team won the Ivy League championship in both 1981 and 1982, and also competed in the NCAA tournament in 1982. The ice hockey teams were Ivy League champions in 1982, 1983, and 1984, and scoring ace Syrena Carlbom was named the League’s Player of the Year in all three campaigns, and she shared the honor in 1981 with Cornell’s Margaret “Digit” Degidio (now the head coach at Brown) and Brown’s Amy Crafts. The Princeton crew achieved its first Ivy League victory at the Eastern Sprints in 1982 and its second in 1985, the first year in which the race was lengthened from 1500 meters to 2000 meters.

Princeton’s volleyball teams dominated the Ivy League tournament for nearly the entire decade, claiming League championships in 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, and 1987. The lacrosse program gained new promise in 1987 when Chris Sailer, formerly a standout athlete at Harvard, arrived as head coach. After gradually improving its record each year, the 1989 team finished with a 14-3 record and made its first semifinal appearance at the NCAA tournament. (Story, page 146) And, led by head coach Louise Gengler, a 1975 graduate of Princeton, the tennis team tied Yale for first place in 1980 in the inaugural official Ivy League tennis championship. The team then went on to take first place at the EAIAW championship by beating Yale in New Haven, and advanced to the national AIAW competition in Arizona.

A number of Princeton women participated on Olympic teams during this period. Rower Carol Brown was part of the 1980 team that did not compete because of the boycott, but she did compete in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, along with Anne Marden, who took a silver medal in quadruple sculls with coxswain. At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Marden rowed again and earned a second silver medal, this time in single sculls. Former Princeton stars Lynn Jennings and Deborah St. Phard also competed that year in track and field, with Jennings as a distance runner for the United States and St. Phard representing Haiti in the shot put.