History lessons in order as baseball meets Cornell

With the streak the baseball team is currently riding, the season has become almost predictable. And though the Tigers are looking to repeat recent history, they do not want to follow too closely. They want to raise the bar.

Princeton has earned spots in the Ivy League Championship series the last five years by winning Gehrig Division titles. With a run like that, the final league weekend of the season often looks the same for the Tigers — win one or two games and clinch the top spot. This season is no different.

With an 11-5 Ivy record, the Tigers are three games ahead of second-place Columbia, which sits at 8-8. Cornell still has an outside shot at the division title, but would have to win its remaining six games and count on both Princeton and the Lions to lose the rest of theirs. But if the Tigers win only one game this weekend, they clinch a share of the title. If they win two or Columbia loses one, the title is theirs.

Last season, the situation was similar, except that Cornell was in Columbia's position. Thus, all Princeton needed to do was win one game. And that is all they did.

With the title on the line, Prince-ton barely held on, going 1-3 in the final weekend, getting the win behind a good pitching performance from junior Chris Young.

"Against [Columbia and Penn] we've been 27-5 over the last four years," senior right fielder Max Krance said. "But against Cornell, we've only been 6-6. I don't know if we've taken them too lightly or if we've just been riding out the season, but this year we're looking to take the series."

Nothing thus far in the season indicates the Tigers can't do exactly that. In four league weekends, Princeton has not lost a series yet, going 2-2 in the first weekend and 3-1 every weekend since. But with small late-season lapses, such as the Cornell series last season, the Tigers have been forced to reverse some downward momentum just before the championship series. This year, the team hopes to cruise through the weekend in high gear.

"We're definitely not looking at the the Ivy League championship yet," Krance said. "This year we've really been playing to win every individual weekend."

Taking Young's place this season as the staff ace and all-but-guaranteed one win is sophomore righthander Ryan Quillian. In four Ivy games, Quillian has allowed only four runs and has gone the distance in each of those starts. He carries a 3-1 league record, the one blemish coming last weekend in a 2-1 loss to Penn.

Quillian will likely face Cornell's top hurler, Brendan McQuaid. The junior is also a workhorse, compiling 53 innings pitched this season to go along with a 5-0 record and 3.06 earned run average. He also has one distinction Princeton would like to eliminate — he has never lost an Ivy League game.

"He's beaten us for the last two years," Krance said, "so it would be nice to beat him."

The Tigers are also looking for a strong performance from sophomore righthander David Boehle, who only allowed two runs in his last start, an 8-2 win over the Quakers.

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If the two aces do face each other, the Tiger offense will need to give Quillian more run support, which has been relatively absent in all of his Ivy starts. Though Quillian has only allowed those four runs, his team has given him just six to work with. As a result, his three wins have all been one-run games.

But after that first-game loss last weekend, Princeton picked up the slack at the plate, scoring 22 runs over the final three games.

"As a team, we're starting to swing the bats a little better," Krance said. "The middle of our lineup is starting to produce, so we're looking to get some good at-bats."

Though the Tiger offense may not be as strong as it was last year, it is starting to hit its stride at the right time. Princeton sits at the same exact spot — 11-5 with only one win absolutely necessary — and history looks to put the team in the playoffs. But after lapses in recent years, the Tigers are looking to reverse once small part of history — to go at least 3-1 instead of 1-3.