Baseball battles through drizzle, cold and Vermont

Four games in two days is nothing new to a baseball team that just ripped off 12 games in 11 days over Spring Break. This weekend it was rain and cold weather that were the problems.

Princeton (5-14) split a home doubleheader with Vermont (7-4) Saturday and lost the front end of another Sunday before the final game was canceled in the fourth inning due to rain and bad field conditions.

In the first game Saturday, the Tigers used a four-run third inning to breeze by the Catamounts, 6-2, in seven innings at Clarke Field.

Vermont centerfielder Jeff Barry smoked a double on the first pitch of the game from senior Ryan Quillian and scored on a single two batters later. Princeton responded with a run of its own in the bottom of the first inning. Senior catcher Jon Miller singled with two outs, advanced on a wild pitch, and scored on a single by sophomore infielder Ryan Eldridge.

Quillian calmed down, and the Tigers backed him up. A four-run outburst in the third inning was plenty of support for the senior starter.

Junior utility man Steve Young led off the third with a walk, then scored when sophomore outfielder B.J. Szymanski lifted a fly ball to right field that ricocheted off the glove of Vermont's Jason Carey and resulted in a three-base error. Miller then doubled home Szymanski, and junior catcher Tim Lahey followed with a two-run homerun.

Quillian gave one back in the fourth, but junior outfielder Eric Fitzgerald hit a solo homer in the bottom half to answer.

Both Quillian (2-2) and his opponent on the mound, Justin Bissonnette, went the distance.

Catamount vengeance

Vermont got its revenge in the second game. A well-pitched battle came down to the wire, with the Catamounts winning 4-2 thanks to a three-run ninth-inning rally. Princeton, though, struck first. Fitzgerald led off and reached on an error by Vermont shortstop Bobby Tewksbury. Szymanski followed with a single, then pulled off the double steal with Fitzgerald before freshman outfielder Andrew Salini singled them home for a 2-0 Tiger lead.

The Catamounts halved the lead in the second when infielder Jason Iannoni blasted a leadoff homerun.

Pitching took over from there. Senior David Boehle got the start for Princeton and gave up just the one run in five innings. Senior Bill Broome relieved him in the six and pitched scoreless through the eighth.

Vermont's Jamie Merchant matched them pitch-for-pitch and kept the Tigers off the scoreboard until his team finally broke through in the ninth.

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Broome retired the first two batters of the final inning before the Catamounts' Kyle Brault came in to pinch hit with the game on the line. On Broome's first pitch, Brault smacked a homerun to tie the game.

Barry then singled, Tewksbury walked, and Carey ripped a double to give Vermont the 4-2 lead.

"That stuff just happens," Princeton head coach Scott Bradley said. "No matter how good you are, you're always going to give up the late homerun sometimes. It's part of the game. We just hope it doesn't happen in any Ivy League games."

Merchant tossed a perfect ninth to seal the complete-game win.

Conditions were far worse Sunday after nighttime rain left the grass soaked. The teams played the first game in a light drizzle, and Vermont won 4-0 in seven innings on the strength of a three-hitter from sophomore Derek Miller.

"Vermont is a very good team with a very solid pitching staff," Bradley said after watching his team go scoreless in a 15-inning stretch between the second and third games.

Freshman Erik Stiller got the start for the Tigers as temperatures dropped below 30 degrees. Perhaps it was the cold that bothered the Texas freshman and led to four Catamount runs in the first two innings.

Jon Miller ripped a double off his namesake in the first inning, but after that Princeton only had one hit — a dribbler down the first base line by Eldridge in the second — in their next 19 plate appearances.

The light rain turned heavy and mixed with sleet and snow as the second game got started. Vermont scored five runs in the first off sophomore Jason Vaughan, but none of the statistics will count as the game was canceled with the Tigers trailing 7-5 in the fourth inning, before it could be declared official.