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Baseball prepares to take on Harvard in Ivy League Championship Series

The Princeton baseball team has beaten six of the other seven teams in the Ivy League this year.

Harvard is the only team they have not yet beaten.

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But the Tigers (22-21 overall, 13-7 Ivy League) will have another shot at the Crimson (18-23, 13-7) this weekend as the two teams face off in the Ivy League Championship Series in Cambridge, Mass.

Back in early April, Princeton dropped a pair of home games to Harvard, 4-2 and 5-2. However, all past results are dismissed for this weekend. The team that wins two of the next three games will advance to the NCAA Tournament.

The Tigers clinched their spot in the Series by splitting four games with Cornell last weekend. The team's 6-1 victory on Friday and 5-1 win on Saturday were enought to place Princeton in its third consecutive Ivy Championship Series.

Princeton defeated Dartmouth in both 2000 and 2001 to win the Ivies. Last year, the Tigers kept the momentum going, winning their first NCAA tournament game since 1965 with an 11-6 triumph against the Citadel.

Harvard had a more difficult time claiming a spot in the Series. After finishing the regular season tied with Brown atop the Rolfe Division standings, the two teams played a deciding game Wednesday to determine the champion.

Going into the bottom of the ninth, Harvard was trailing 1-0 and faced an uphill challenge against Brown hurler Jonathan Stern.

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Stern, who fanned 14 Crimson batters, gave up an RBI triple after pushing the count to 0-2 with two outs. The next batter hit a single and the game was over.

Stern's counterpart, Harvard's Ben Crockett, struck out 16 Bears during the game. After 137 pitches on the afternoon, Princeton head coach Scott Bradley said Crockett will likely not be available until Sunday, if the Series goes that far.

"If it got down to nitty-gritty time on Sunday, I think we could see him at some point in the game," Bradley said. "He's a tough kid and he's been one of the best pitchers in this league for a long time."

Bradley expects the game to be fairly low-scoring and the ability of each team to capitalize on its chances will determine the Series.

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"It's not going to be a slugfest so teams will have to take advantage of their scoring opportunities," he said. "It's going to come down to who gets hits at the right times and who plays great defensively."

If Princeton can get off to as quick a start in the early innings as it has in recent weeks, then the team could escape the chance of facing Crockett.

Two wins on Saturday would also cross the last Ivy team off Princeton's list and put them back in the NCAA tournament.