After Ivy championship, baseball heads into NCAAs

Baseball won its sixth straight Lou Gehrig Division title this year, and on May 10 and 11, they defeated Harvard, two games to one, in the Ivy League Championship Series to earn the automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament.

The Tigers (27-21 overall, 15-5 Ivy League) will take on Auburn Friday, May 30 to begin their third NCAA in four years. The two Tiger teams have never met before.

Princeton succeeded mainly on the arms of probably the best pitching staff in the Ivy League.

The star of the pitching staff was junior closer Thomas Pauly. The dominating right-hander easily bested everyone in the Ivy League in earned-run average. His 0.92 ERA and 5-1 record paced the Tigers, which led the league as a team in ERA.

This complemented the Tigers' biggest weakness, getting hits. Princeton was seventh in the league with a scant .257 batting average. This was a glaring difference between Princeton and their Lou Gehrig runner-up, Penn. The Quakers was second in the league in batting average at .301.

When Princeton and Penn met April 18 and 19, the teams were in hot competition, but the overpowering Tiger pitchers took care of business, securing three wins in the four games, allowing only four runs in the three victories. Senior pitcher Ryan Quillian led the way with a shutout in game three, which included eight strikeouts.

Princeton started off the season by losing its first four games to Richmond and then improving their record little over their spring break trip through Virginia and North Carolina. At the end of the trip, the Tigers were a miserable 7-14, but then they began Ivy League play.

"The conference games are of the utmost importance," head coach Scott Bradley said, "but we try to get the most good teams we can get. We play about 25 percent of our games on the spring trip."

After the tough road trip, Princeton mopped the floor with the Ivy League, snagging the Lou Gehrig Division by three games over Penn. Because of their conference performance, the Tigers gained home-field advantage for the Ivy League Championship against Harvard.

After splitting the first two games of the series, Princeton took no chances in game three, sending Pauly to the mound.

While Harvard drew first blood, scoring twice in second inning, the Tigers rocked the Crimson with five runs in the following two innings. That was more than enough for Pauly, who cruised through the last seven innings of the game, striking out 10 and giving up only one of his four hits allowed outside of the second frame.

That was the way it went all season, though. Princeton's pitchers came through in the clutch, allowing the league's second-lowest opponents' batting average and striking out the most batters.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

While the pitching staff was the backbone of the Tigers' play, they could have gone nowhere without some production from the plate.

The anchor of the Princeton offense came from behind the plate — junior catcher Tim Lahey. A reliable backstop, Lahey also had some power from the batter's box. He jacked 11 home runs on the year, the most in the league by three and nearly half of the team's total of 28.

Senior third baseman Jon Miller was also a catcher to start the season, but Bradley found a reliable man for the hot corner in Miller, who led the team in batting average, on base percentage, runs batted-in and walks.

The rest of the offense was built around speed. Second baseman Steve Young, center fielder B.J. Szymanski and sophomore right fielder Adam Balkan all stole at least eight bases this year.

After a grueling schedule that included four to five games per week, the Tigers will have had nearly three weeks off to rest and heal before they take on Auburn. Princeton hopes that the clash of the Tigers is the first step on the road to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.