With festivities in the background, baseball defeats Monmouth

Just about the only thing that could have made the baseball team's 13-1 victory over Monmouth better was if the bands on Prospect Ave. would have kept their music blasting for the full nine innings.

See, the music quieted down in the eighth inning, just before senior pitcher Chris Higgins gave up his first hit of the game, ending his bid for a no-hitter.

Princeton (17-18 overall, 11-5 Ivy League) played arguably its best baseball of the spring on Wednesday, committing just one error while recording 17 hits.

The Tigers got started quickly. After Higgins retired the side in the top of the first, Princeton put seven runs on the board in the bottom half of the inning.

"That was huge for us," senior shortstop Pat Boran said. "We've done that a few times this year and today we didn't let up. Usually, we score a couple runs and then let up, but today we were in it for the whole game."

The source for many of those blown leads has been the defense. That, however, was not the case, as the Tigers made several diving stops behind Higgins' gem on the mound.

"Steve Young made two great plays," Higgins said, spreading the praise to his fielders. "Eric Fitzgerald — I don't know how he saw that [fly]ball in left field — made a great play. Mike Chernoff with that diving play [in the hole in the seventh inning], and Ryan Reich with another great play in right field.

"That's my type of game — I need people to play well for me to be effective. That happened today."

It also didn't hurt that Higgins had complete command on the mound.

"My game is to get ahead of hitters early," he said. "I'm not going to overpower anybody so I want to get a lot of ground balls and easy fly balls. Luckily, I did that today and people made great plays."

Monmouth (22-16, 16-2 Northeast Conference) finally got on the board in the eighth, when pinch hitter Chris Ciminiello doubled home Chuck Gookins who had singled on the previous pitch. Those would be the only hits that the Hawks would get on the day, as senior Nick Pappas came in to pitch a scoreless ninth for the Tigers.

With Wednesday's non-conference game and the upcoming four games against Pace, head coach Scott Bradley said he wanted many non-regulars to get action.

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Bradley gave two starters the day off, as sophomore Will Taylor filled in for freshman Ryan Eldridge at first base and sophomore Steve Young played third for senior Eric Voelker. The two combined to hit 5-7 with four runs and two RBI.

Taylor had a single and scored in the big opening inning while Young was hit by a pitch and scored. Sophomore catcher Tim Lahey provided the big hit in the inning with a three-run double to center field.

Bradley was not as successful in getting many pitchers in the game.

"Higgins screwed up all my plans by having a no-hitter through seven," Bradley said. "You've got to give him every opportunity to keep pitching."

Bradley is, however, pleased with the play of his team. He said he was worried that in previous weekends the team may have been trying to do too much.

"I've never had a stretch right in the middle of the conference season where you have a weekend not playing in the league," he said. "We can back off a little bit. The pressure's kind of off for the time being. Guys can relax and get some work in, take a little looser approach at the plate and then play.

"Sometimes in baseball, the harder you try, the worse off you are. Sometimes in league games, I think we might try a little bit too hard."

The Tigers added two runs in the third and three more in the fourth, pounding out six hits in the two innings. Young started off the scoring in the second, crossing the plate on a Boran double after smacking a triple of his own.

After looking at the outcome of Wednesday's game, the team may want to play in front of a band every game.