“We saw some great competition over spring break,” sophomore second baseman Collette Abbott said in an e-mail. “[We’ve] found that we need to stay focused on one play at a time, work together as a team, and play aggressive.”
Despite its current 10-game losing streak, Princeton has lost several tight games that could have gone either way. The Tigers lost seven of their games by one run and also dropped two games to nationally ranked opponents — No. 5 Stanford and No. 8 Oklahoma — over the break.
Princeton currently holds a .231 team batting average. Sophomore rightfielder Kelsey Quist sparked the team with the season’s first home run against Niagara and is hitting .300 in 60 at bats for the team’s highest individual average. She also has scored a team-high 12 runs and has 18 hits. Senior pitcher Kristen Schaus has been impressive on the mound with 101 strikeouts in 77 innings. She dominates the league standings with almost twice as many K’s as the next highest pitcher.
Schaus, who has been the staff anchor since Erin Snyder ’06 graduated two years ago, will be key to determining how well the Tigers finish in the Ivy League standings. Schaus has had a difficult year considering the brilliance of her first two years. After posting 14-9 and 16-9 records her first two years, Schaus suffered from a lack of offensive support and late-inning inconsistency last year, posting a 12-14 mark. This season, her record stands at 1-11.
Dartmouth, in the midst of a less-severe three-game losing streak, carries a .157 team batting average at this point in the season. The Big Green has been particularly lacking in offense, as it has lost six of its games in shutouts. Though its pitching staff allows an average of 3.58 earned runs per game, its opponents average a mere .95. In last year’s matchups, Princeton took two victories over the Big Green at home.
Dartmouth and Princeton share only one similar opponent from their pre-Ivy schedule. Dartmouth split its games against Quinnipiac over spring break, winning one and dropping the other in a tournament hosted by Stony Brook. The Tigers lost a 2-0 decision to Quinnipiac in their third game of the season.
Harvard the reigning Ivy champ has experienced slightly more success than the other two ball clubs thus far this season. The Crimson has been recently encouraged by winning its first three games at home and is now averaging .292, with six players above .300 in the hitting rankings.
“Harvard has had strong pitching and hitting in the past,” Abbott said.
Last spring, the Crimson offense proved to be too much for the Tigers as they conquered their Ivy rival in a pair of doubleheaders at Princeton.
These three teams are in the bottom half of the Ivy standings in batting average and team pitching, but Princeton leads the league in fielding and total strikeouts with 125. All of these statistics are from non-league games, however. As any sports fan knows, the landscape totally changes when conference play begins, and Princeton is confident in its abilities to regroup from its past losses.
“We are going to come out strong and have a great opening Ivy League weekend,” Abbott said when asked for a prediction.
The Tigers will face Dartmouth at 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Harvard at the same times on Sunday. All of the games will be played on Class of 1985 Field.
Original URL: http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/03/28/20590/