Baseball opens with three-game sweep over Old Dominion

Considering his team was opening its season against Justin Verlander, an All-American pitcher whose fastball tops out at 96 miles per hour, baseball head coach Scott Bradley probably would not have complained if the Tigers had struggled at the plate.

Perhaps he forgot to tell B.J. Szymanski. The junior centerfielder strode to the plate with two outs in the first inning, turned on the first pitch he saw and belted it over the centerfield fence. Three batters later, sophomore Andrew Salini followed suit with a three-run homer. A most unlikely rout had begun.

Princeton (3-0) would go on to rough up Verlander for 10 runs in five innings en route to 14-8 defeat of Old Dominion. The momentum would carry over to the next two days, as the Tigers won, 6-1 and 9-5, to complete the three-game road sweep of the Monarchs (6-9).

Four days later, Bradley was still at a loss for words when explaining how his team managed to rock one of the best pitchers in the nation.

"To be honest," he said with a laugh, "we're still trying to figure that one out actually."

Indeed, Bradley was quite pleased with all three games, admitting that he could find few flaws with such a strong performance so early in the year. Beyond a few baserunning blunders, he was thrilled with Princeton's fundamentals, as evidenced by one error in three days.

He theorized that the Tigers' benefited from playing two intrasquad scrimmages prior to their season opener, a rare occurrence given New Jersey's normal February climate. But the break in the weather last week allowed them to flee Jadwin's bowels and get reaccustomed to the feel of grass and dirt beneath their cleats.

As a result, the Tigers came out of the gates on fire. After the big first inning in Friday's game, they continued to knock Verlander around, tacking on two runs each in the third, fourth and fifth before the pitcher was finally sent to the showers. Meanwhile, Princeton's ace, junior Ross Ohlendorf, allowed just two runs in five innings to pick up the win.

After Friday's offensive fireworks, Saturday's game quickly turned into a pitchers' duel, as the scoreboard filled with goose eggs for the first six innings. Sophomore Erik Stiller started for the Tigers and hurled five scoreless innings.

Sophomore catcher Zack Wendkos drove in the game's first run with a double in the top of the seventh, and Princeton added three more runs thanks in part to a costly Monarch error. Szymanski hit his second dinger of the series, a two-run shot, to finish the scoring in the 6-1 Tiger win. Freshman Eric Walz pitched the final four innings for the win.

Sunday's game featured the debut of Gavin Fabian, the Tigers' most heralded recruit. The freshman fireballer did not disappoint, allowing two runs in six innings. More impressively, the count never reached three balls on any batter.

Princeton turned a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead in the eighth, making junior lefty Worth Lumry the winner. The Tigers added five more in the ninth, and junior Brian Kappel got the save.

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While Princeton's offensive outburst was not unexpected, the pitching staff had been a question mark. The command and poise the young hurlers displayed bode well for the Tigers' future.

"The staff has a chance to be as good as ever," Bradley said. "I expect big things, but I didn't expect them to be that sharp from the start."