The hottest team in Ivy League baseball has a chance this weekend to clinch the Lou Gehrig Division title and home-field advantage for the Ivy League Championship Series.
And if Princeton falters in their back-to-back doubleheaders with Columbia at Clarke Field Saturday and Sunday, they still have four more conference games to get the job done.
The Tigers (19-16 overall, 10-2 Ivy League) are on a roll after starting the season 7-15. Princeton has won four straight and 12 of its last 13 while rooting itself at the top of the conference standings.
Their only loss in that stretch came in the first game of a doubleheader at Penn last weekend, an 8-7 loss in which the Tigers rallied to tie in the top of the seventh before losing in the bottom half.
Princeton is tied in the win column with Penn in the Ivy League standings but has a huge advantage in the loss column. The Quakers have four more losses and four fewer games to catch up.
The Tigers took three out of four games from Penn this season and, therefore, can clinch at least a tie in the division with any combination of Princeton wins and Quaker losses totaling four. Penn is at Cornell this weekend.
Standing in Princeton's way are the last-place Lions (18-24, 7-9), who have lost eight of their last 11 and have almost no hope of postseason play.
The record, though, is not indicative of their offensive production.
The numbers
Columbia baseball may not have Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as its coach, but it does have Billy Hess — a heavy-hitting infielder who boasts a team-best .401 batting average.
Three other hitters are over .330 on a club that bats a solid .306 as a team and scores over 6.5 runs per game.
The problem for the Lions is on the mound. Columbia pitchers have a lofty 6.78 earned run average and are allowing 7.7 runs per game.
Brian Doveala is the staff ace, going 5-1 with a respectable 3.31 ERA, 41 strikeouts, and five complete games in eight starts and 49.0 innings pitched. Jesse Grant (4-2) is the only other Lion with a winning record.
Princeton's strengths are reversed in this series — it has the better statistical pitching staff but lower numbers behind the plate.
Senior catcher Jon Miller still leads the team in hitting with a .353 average in 119 at-bats. He also has a team-high 26 runs batted in.
Sophomore outfielder B.J. Szymanski is second with a .333 average, and sophomore first-baseman Ryan Eldridge, at .305, and junior infielder Steve Young, at .301, are the only other Tigers over .300.
The team is hitting just .261 and averaging 5.8 runs per game.
Junior catcher Tim Lahey, who hit a grand slam against Monmouth in Princeton's last game, has just 26 hits. Among those hits, however, are 10 home runs, twice as many as the next best home run hitter in the Ivy League.
The Tigers top pitcher is junior Thomas Pauly, who owns a 1.27 ERA and an outstanding 43 strikeouts in just 28 innings pitched. The closer has compiled a 4-1 record and three saves in 11 appearances.
Seniors Ryan Quillian and David Boehle are the squad's top starters, each taking the mound seven times this season. Quillian has a 3.20 ERA, 32 strikeouts, and a 4-3 record in 45.0 innings pitched. Boehle has a 3.38 ERA, 37 strikeouts, and a 3-1 record in 40.0 innings pitched.
The agenda
Princeton will need to find ways to exploit Columbia's weaknesses over a four-game span this weekend.
First and foremost, Princeton needs to score runs against the weaker Lion pitching staff. The Tigers are 13-2 when they score at least six runs in a game, and just 6-14 when they score less.
Princeton also needs to get out of the first innings unscathed. Columbia has scored 50 of its 277 runs, or 18 percent, in the first inning — its most productive inning. The Tigers tend to start slower, scoring just 41 runs in the first two innings combined so far this season, and picking it up in the fifth through seventh innings.
Even a split this weekend should put Princeton in position to take the division crown and clinch home-field advantage in the ILCS. Harvard, the leader of the Red Rolfe Division, is just 6-6, a full four games behind home-field pace with only eight to play.
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