Baseball wins once, falls three times to ODU in season-opening weekend

In its opening weekend of the 2002 season, the baseball team saw ups and downs in its games at Old Dominion in Norfolk, Va. The Tigers went 1-3 on the weekend against ODU, coming up with a respectable win on the front-end of the Saturday double-header, 10-3. Princeton dropped the Friday game 5-0, the Saturday nightcap 9-2, and the Sunday game 13-4.

"I think we did a pretty good job," head coach Scott Bradley said. "Our main objective when we went away this weekend was to get everybody into the ballgame, to make sure our pitchers had a chance to get game action, and I thought we did a pretty nice job [of that]."

After being shutout the night before, the Tigers were in desperate search of a boost. That boost came in the sixth inning, when Princeton drove in five runs to give the team an 8-2 lead that would be insurmountable for the Monarchs. While Old Dominion was able to score one more run in the bottom of the sixth inning, the Tigers tacked on two more runs in the top of the eighth to seal the victory.

Freshman outfielder Adam Balkan and sophomore outfielder Ryan Reich had the big bats for Princeton in the victory. Balkan went 3-6 in the game batting in three of the Tigers' runs, while Reich went 3-5 with two RBI.

"We are very young around the field, position-wise," Bradley said. "Those are the guys that just have to figure out the pace of college baseball in terms of what it's like facing the pitching we face on a regular basis."

Princeton also found its strength in the pitching arm of senior reliever Tom Rowland. Rowland entered the game in the fourth inning and finished the game for the win. Although he gave up the three Monarch runs of the game, he only allowed five hits in five innings.

"The definite strength of our team is our pitching and our pitching depth," coach Bradley said. "[It] is the key to our team."

The Tigers' two mainstays at pitching have been junior right-handers David Boehle and Ryan Quillian. Quillian started in the first game on Friday, dropping his record to 0-1 on the season. Boehle also started a game this weekend, but only pitched one inning, due to a knee injury that happened when he was running to cover first base. The severity of the injury is still to be determined.

The Tigers did not fare so well in the other games. In the Friday game, Princeton was unable to put any runs on the scoreboard, managing only three hits on the combination of Old Dominion pitchers Justin Verlander and Jonathan Tinkham.

Princeton was able to jump out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning of the Sunday game. With two outs, the Tigers rallied, as Monarch pitcher Erick Voelker walked in the first run, sophomore infielder Steve Young. Sophomore catcher Tim Lahey's single brought in the other two runs, freshman first baseman Ryan Eldridge and junior Jon Miller. Princeton's scoring was capped off in the eighth on the power of a sacrifice fly from sophomore pitcher Brian Biegen that brought in the fourth run. Old Dominion's pitching held the Tigers at bay for the rest of the game, and the Monarch's big swingers knocked in 13 runs, including five in the sixth and five in the seventh.

For its opening weekend, Princeton came out of its first road trip a more experienced team—especially after playing a team as experienced as Old Dominion. ODU is now 7-9, having started their season well before the beleagured Tigers.

"We went down and played an Old Dominion team that is very, very good," Bradley said. "I thought we were a little tentative in some spots, and I think that has to do with the fact that it was our first game action of the year."

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With spring break looming, the team must now look to the road trip to North Carolina, where again the team hopes to gain precious experience. There they will face Atlantic Coast Conference powerhouses Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Princeton will also make a stopover at Elon College in NC before heading north to take on William & Mary in Virginia.

"How far we go is going to depend on, offensively, how our young kids that we're playing can figure things out," Bradley said.