Although league play for softball is just starting to kick into high gear, it is already clear what has dominated season play thus far. If you guessed pitching, hitting or fielding you're not even close. The weather has proven to be the Tigers' most formidable foe, as Wednesday's game against Tow-son was postponed due to rain.
But have no fear: Princeton should shake off its cabin fever with a healthy dose of doubleheaders against Brown (9-12 overall, 0-0 Ivy League) and Yale (10-16, 0-0).
After defeating Penn in a doubleheader on Sunday, the Tigers (11-10, 2-0) are perfect in conference play and will look to improve their standing over the weekend. Both doubleheaders are away, and a successful road trip could bring Princeton a step closer to claiming another Ivy League championship.
The Tigers are hoping to spoil Brown's Ivy League opener this Saturday. Though the Bears are three games under the .500 mark, they should give Princeton a good game. Brown is a much better team on its own field, boasting a 3-1 home record this season. Contrast this with the team's 3-6 away record, and it becomes evident that the Bears are a tale of two teams. The mystery going into Saturday's game is which Brown squad will show up to play the Tigers.
Offensively the Bears are lacking. However, they do have a pair of sluggers that could give Princeton hurlers some trouble. Freshman catcher Jaimie Wirkowski is batting an impressive .345 with one home run and a slugging percentage of .500. She also has 15 runs batted in this year.
Wirkowski's partner in crime is junior infielder Laura Leonetti. Leonetti is hitting .344 and has drawn a team high 11 walks this season. She also leads the team in on-base percentage at .444. Aside from Wirkowski and Leonetti, Brown's offense is less than stellar, as the third best batter on the team hits a paltry .255. The overall team batting average is just .238.
The Bear's pitching staff has an ace in sophomore pitcher/third base Uchenna Omokaro. Omokaro is 5-3 overall with a 2.44 earned run average and has struck out a team high 37 batters in 51.2 innings. Brown pitchers have allowed opponents to hit .251 this season and will have their work cut out for them this weekend if they are to keep their team in the contest. In last year's doubleheader the Tigers beat Brown twice, winning by scores of 10-3 and 6-1. Princeton will look to duplicate its success from last year.
The Tigers had similar success against Yale last season, sweeping the Elis in a doubleheader with 2-1 and 10-1 victories. Princeton would like nothing more than to sweep Yale once again this Sunday, something much easier said than done.
The Elis, more so than the Bears, play a different brand of softball at home than away from New Haven. Yale is 8-2 at home but winless in all four of its away games and 2-10 in games at neutral sites. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pretty much sums up Yale's play this season — sometimes the team is good and sometimes it's just plain awful.
However, the quality of the Elis cannot be judged on record alone, as the team has some serious talent within its ranks on both offense and defense.
Senior third base Jesseka Bartholomew is batting .379 with 18 RBIs, the team leader in both categories. Junior outfielder Britni Fabacher is a .333 hitter and leads the team in slugging percentage at .538 while knocking in 10 RBIs. As a team the Elis bat .247 and can manufacture some runs, as evidenced by the team's 78 RBIs.
The baffling thing about Yale is that its top three pitchers have very good ERAs but less than stellar win-loss records, with the exception of freshman pitcher Beth Pavlicek, who is 6-2 overall. Pavlicek has pitched six complete games thus far and has a razor-thin ERA of 1.12 with 43 strikeouts. She's a real powerhouse, to say the least. In contrast, freshmen Peggy Hunt and Ashley Linnenbank are a combined 4-12 but have ERAs of 1.86 and 2.81, respectively. All of this suggests that the Elis make a lot of errors (38) that often translate into runs for the opposition. The Tigers will have to exploit these fielding lapses to come away with a pair of victories on Sunday.
Assuming Mother Nature behaves and the team takes care of business this weekend, the Tigers could return to Princeton the same way they left — undefeated in the Ivy League and poised to defend their league championship.
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