Softball will meet Yale, Brown this weekend with Ivy title hopes on line

Softball's head coach Maureen Davies '97 won more than her fair share of Ivy League titles as a Princeton pitcher in the mid-90s. Davies won three straight championships from her freshman year in 1994 to her junior year in 1996, though she was never able to acquire that elusive fourth her senior year. The coach, in her first season at the helm last year, led the team to an 8-6 Ivy record, placing the Tigers in fourth place in the league.

Yet Davies could finally win that fourth title this weekend if her team sweeps Yale and Brown in what might prove to be the defining moments of the softball season.

Princeton (25-15 overall, 9-1 Ivy League) plays Yale (18-16, 4-4) at home on Saturday at 1 p.m. in a doubleheader, and then hosts Brown (7-17, 2-6) the next afternoon at the same time.

This weekend's matchups return the softball enthusiast to the good old early days of the league. The history between Princeton and its weekend opponents dates back to the league's inception in 1980.

Yale won the inaugural championship that year and, after Penn took the title the next season — its only softball title to date — the only major contenders in the league until the turn of the millennium were Princeton, Brown, and Yale.

Brown won its first title in 1982, followed by Princeton who won it a record seven times in a row, from 1983 to 1989. The Tigers split the title with Brown in '86, then took all the titles until 1996, save the title in 1990, which Brown took, and the one in 1993, which Yale grabbed. In 1997, when Davies was a senior, the title was stolen by the Bears, and from that day the Tigers have yet to win another Ivy League championship.

To date, the team has won 12 of the league's 22 titles, though that lucky number 13 still awaits. What better way to secure it then to steal it from the very team, Brown, which stole it from them in the first place in '97.

Expect the Bulldogs and the Bears to come out swinging, if only because the teams have nothing to lose. The Tigers' first opponent, Yale, stands in the middle of the Ivy pack with a record of 4-4. Even with a miracle, the best the team can do is finish 10-4, while the worst Princeton can finish, assuming the team loses its last four Ivy games, is 9-5.

Brown, at an even worse 2-6, is already out of contention for the league title. The Bears are playing solely for pride — or at least whatever is left of it.

The Elis come into Saturday's matchup with one of the best pitching rotations and defenses in the league. Yale stands in second place in team ERA in the Ivy League, a quarter of a point better than the Tigers. The team's ace is Cara Denver — Yale's only senior — who led the team in wins (9), strikeouts (77) and ERA (2.35) last year. This season, Denver is second in the league, sporting a 1.34 earned run average.

Denver should match up nicely against Princeton's ace, senior pitcher Brie Galicinao who, despite having an ERA slightly higher than Denver, has some 60 more strikeouts more than Denver in just over 25 more innings pitched.

If Princeton can get by Yale with a clean sweep, then come Sunday all the Tigers might have to do is show up to win the title.

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The Tigers' closest competitor is Harvard, who enters the weekend with a 7-1 league record. If both teams win out in the league, they will split the league title, since they split the season series. Harvard still has games against Columbia, Dartmouth, and the always-dangerous Big Red.

Brown, itself led by a new coach this year, came into the season with high expectations but has had a disappointing record to date. Brown silenced a potent Cornell offense last weekend in its 3-2 victory over the Big Red, though that win has been the only true light that has shined on the Bears in Ivy League play.