The sights are set.
After a sweep of Gehrig Division rival Penn, the Tigers' baseball team is 4-0 in the Ivy League and is poised to take a commanding lead in the race for the Ivy crown.
Princeton (8-12 overall) — which has won six of its last seven games — looks to build on the success of last weekend and take out Ivy foes Harvard and Dartmouth this weekend. Another sweep will be difficult, but extremely important.
"The team with the best record is going to host the championship series so every game becomes important right down to the end," head coach Scott Bradley said.
The Tigers already have a leg up on the rest of the league. Besides Penn, no Ivy team has played conference games.
"Normally, we would play Harvard and Dartmouth and the teams out of our division first and then have three weekends left against teams in our division," Bradley said. "It's kind of nice knowing right now that we have four wins in the bank."
Increasing that number may prove to be a difficult task, however, as Harvard boasts an all-senior infield and 10th-round draft pick, pitcher Ben Crockett.
Crockett, who played in the Cape Cod League this past summer with Tiger senior shortstop Pat Boran, is 1-1 on the year with a 1.64 ERA. He was named "New England's Top Prospect" following his summer in the Cape.
"He throws strikes, throws hard and has a good breaking ball," Bradley said of Crockett, who will start the second game on Saturday. "There's nothing else we can do except to concentrate and have good at-bats.
"He may dominate some situations the first five or six innings, but if we can make him work, hopefully we'll get to the point in the later innings where he'll lose a little bit off his fastball."
Princeton has been swinging the bat well as of late, especially in Wednesday's loss at Rider. The Tigers had eight hits in terrible conditions during the 7-6 loss.
"We had some good situational at-bats and hit a couple sacrifice flies [Wednesday], so we were able to score some runners from third base with less than two outs," Bradley said. "We advanced baserunners, not only with the bunt but also by hitting behind people. In hard-fought Ivy League games, you have to be able to play the situation, and I think we did a nice job [Wednesday]."
Princeton may need that kind of offense against Dartmouth, who earlier in the week demolished Quinnipiac, 22-9. The Tigers will also need to tighten up their defense.
"It has been our Achilles' heel so far this year," Bradley said. "Our guys have let in way too many unearned runs so far. Going into this season, I thought that our strong point was going to be our defense. We have to focus on giving teams only three outs per inning and not making bad defensive plays."
The Big Green won the Red Rolfe Division last year and posted its second straight 20-win season. Dartmouth lost to Princeton two games to one in the Ivy League Championship Series.
Dartmouth graduated two of its three All-Ivy selections — Brian Nickerson and Mike Levy. However, sophomore outfielder Scott Sherrill is hitting .373 for the Big Green.
With four more wins, Princeton would be the favorite for a third straight Ivy championship. Princeton is confident about its chances.
"We're starting to turn it around," Bradley said. "There's a lot of balance in the league so I think it should be a great weekend."
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