Baseball's break includes eight-game slide and positive ending

Since the sojourn of the Deltas in the classic "Animal House," the road trip has become a means for college students to "discover" themselves with their classmates.

Over spring break, the baseball team took its own road trip down south to North Carolina and Virginia. There Princeton faced off against some of the nation's best teams. In total, the team played 11 games in nine days, found itself in an eight-game losing streak, broke out of that losing streak and came out 3-8.

The Tigers started off the road trip with a plus, coming out on top of Duke in the front end of a double-header last Saturday. Although the Blue Devils jumped out to a 1-0 lead, Princeton went on a six-run bender starting off with a home run by sophomore outfielder Eric Fitzgerald. Duke tied up the game at nine with its own six-run explosion going into the ninth inning.

Fitzgerald would drive in the winning run on a mishandled bunt in the ninth and then scored on a sacrifice fly by senior shortstop Pat Boran. Sophomore pitcher Thomas Paulie shut out Duke in the bottom of the ninth, giving Mark Siano the win after he came into the game in the seventh and shut down the Blue Devils in the eighth.

Princeton did not fare so well in the tail-end of that double header or in the rest of its games against Duke. The Blue Devils outscored the Tigers 40-16 in the next three games.

As the team headed into Chapel Hill, N.C. to face off against the Tarheels, the Tigers were in desperate need of something to break the jinx that Duke had put on them. They would not find it.

UNC knocked Princeton out of the park twice mid-way through the road trip, 16-2 and 15-2. The Tarheels went yard on the Tigers ten times in the two matchups, with seven of those home runs coming in the second game. Senior right-hander Chris Higgins received the loss for that game, giving up four runs in five innings pitched.

After the disasters in Durham and Chapel Hill, Princeton traveled to Elon College, where it met the Phoenix. The Tigers had one shot to break their mounting losing streak and gain some momentum on their voyage.

Elon was not going to allow that to happen.

The Phoenix scored in big spurts early in the game. Against sophomore right-hander Brian Biegen in the bottom of the first inning, Elon brought in five runs. The second offensive spurt was suffered at the hands of Brian Kappel in the third inning when the Phoenix put up seven more runs. The Tiger relievers were able to contain the Elon offense for the rest of the game, though, and Princeton finally had its own breakout on offense. In the last six innings, the Tigers put up four runs to Elon's zero, with three different Tigers being hit by pitches that advanced runners. That spark carried them into the final leg of their trip — a four-game series against William and Mary.

The team started off as poorly as it had against UNC and Elon, dropping the first two games 6-3 and 6-1. However, in the third game, the nightcap of a double-header on Saturday, the Tigers found their strength, breaking their eight-game losing streak and giving head coach Scott Bradley his 100th win at Princeton. The Tigers' offense dominated the Tribe pitching all game, tallying 17 hits in the 14-5 win.

Yesterday, Princeton ended its road trip with a bang, winning its second game in a row. The Tigers defeated William and Mary, 8-2, with the big bats of the offense once again coming up strong with 15 hits. After a long week of baseball, the team gets ready to open the Ivy League season this weekend when the Tigers host Penn.