The softball team packed up its bags and went home this summer feeling content. The Tigers (24-21-1) were steady this season with their second-straight Ivy title and NCAA qualification.
Princeton's season began slowly, with a blowout by Georgia Tech. However, the Tigers were not destined to follow the lead of its season opener. Coming off of a tight offensive struggle against Villanova in which the Wildcats squeezed in a 1-0 win before tying with Princeton, 3-3, the Tigers were hungry to start the Ivy League season off on the right foot.
Princeton's determination defined its play in the Ivy opener against Penn. The Tigers went up 1-0 in the first inning of the first game when Snyder doubled to score sophomore infielder Kristin Lueke and Cobb-Adams. Penn tied at 2-2 late in the game before Lueke singled in the seventh inning to send home senior utility Erin Valocsik.
Princeton dominated most of the second game, with Penn scoring two late runs. Finley dictated at the mound, pitching three scoreless innings.
The Tigers continued upon a trail of Ivy destruction, wiping out Yale, 5-1 and 2-0, and Brown, 2-0, and was ahead 8-5 before the game was terminated due to darkness.
Blowing by the competition
Princeton's next Ivy competition would end up its only rival for the Ivy championship. Yet head-to-head, the Tigers proved there was no contest, rolling past the Big Red, 8-3 and 8-7. Princeton's offense was on fire beginning in the third inning of the first game, when Lueke hit her first triple of the season. Finley then doubled to score Lueke, followed by Snyder's double to score Finley. Freshman catcher/first base Amanda Erickson singled to bring home Snyder, pulling Princeton ahead to an early 3-0 lead.
Cornell responded with two home runs in the third and fourth innings, but the Tigers did not let up. The fifth inning closed with Princeton up 6-2. Two more Tiger runs in the seventh inning sealed Princeton's victory.
The second game was fiercer. With the game tied 2-2 at the end of the second inning, Princeton soared ahead with five runs in the fourth inning, including a grand slam from Snyder. By the seventh inning, the Tigers had moved ahead, 8-2. Unwilling to give up without a fight, however, Cornell surprised Princeton when it scored five runs with two outs in the seventh inning. The Big Red did not have enough steam to keep up, and the Tigers ended the game 8-7.
After breezing by Dartmouth, 3-0 and 2-1, Princeton was swept by Harvard, 3-2 and 6-5. The long battle for domination of the scoreboard began in the fifth inning when sophomore catcher/infield Ty Ries doubled and then scored with two consecutive Crimson errors. With bases loaded, Finley walked and scored Valocsik, giving the Tigers a 2-0 lead.
Harvard retaliated with two quick runs, one from a Princeton error. The 2-2 tie could not be resolved, throwing the game into extra innings. In the top of the twelfth inning, with bases loaded and two outs, Lauren Stephanchik singled to bring home her teammate, securing the 3-2 win for Harvard.
Confident with recent victory, Harvard sailed ahead 4-0 in the second game. Finley's three-RBI double in the fifth helped to bring the score to another tie at 4-4 and once again push the game into overtime. The Crimson jumped up 6-4 in the tenth, and Erickson's solo homer was not enough to keep Princeton alive.
A 1-0 loss to Columbia brought the Tigers to a 10-3 Ivy record. Cornell's 10-4 record and Princeton's unfinished game against Brown, however, could not guarantee the Tigers as Ivy League champions. As a result, Princeton traveled to Brown where it resumed play in the top of the ninth. The scoreless, nine-minute game gave Princeton an 8-5 win against the Bears and earned it the Ivy title.
NCAA did not prove as successful for Princeton. The Tigers fell in the first round to South Carolina, 8-7. Though Princeton led 7-2 by the start of the seventh inning, the Gamecocks pulled an amazing feat, scoring six runs to clinch the victory. The Tiger's next match up against No. 6 seed Boston College did not fare much better — the Tigers fell 6-0.
With an Ivy title and first-round NCAA loss, Princeton mimicked last season's performance with predictable and consistent play.
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