Baseball drops two league games

Twice this weekend, after dropping the opening game of the doubleheader, the baseball team salvaged a series split with a ninth inning rally in the nightcap.

But despite the late-game heroics, the Tigers (14-12 overall, 3-5 Ivy League) returned home from their visits to New Haven and Providence with a bad taste in their mouths, unhappy with another disappointing weekend against Ivy League opponents.

"In every season, you have a couple of games where things just don't go right for you," junior centerfielder B.J. Szymanski said. "The start of the Ivy League season isn't the best time for it to happen."

The road trip started auspiciously enough, as Princeton got a gem from junior hurler Ross Ohlendorf in Friday afternoon's first game at Yale (10-14, 5-3). Ohlendorf carried a perfect game and 1-0 lead into the bottom of seventh inning, the final frame of the abbreviated opener.

But a leadoff single by Justin Akney broke up the bid at perfection and a single by Marc Sawyer ended the shutout soon thereafter. Perhaps rattled, Ohlendorf's control briefly deserted him — he hit one batter and walked another, loading the bases with two outs.

With a 2-1 count on the next batter, Ohlendorf threw a slid'er for a swinging strike. But on the pitch, the runner on third, Zac Bradley, bolted for home. The combination of a big lead, Ohlendorf's full windup, and a hard-to-handle slider allowed Bradley to safely sneak under senior catcher Tim Lahey's attempted tag. As a result, the Elis nabbed a 2-1 win on the rarest of plays: a walk-off stolen base.

The Elis scored a run in the first inning of the second game and led, 3-2, after sophomore catcher Zach Wendkos and Sawyer traded two-run dingers. The Tigers then seized the edge with three runs in the top of the sixth behind four consecutive singles. But two Yale runs in the bottom of the inning knotted the score at five and knocked Princeton starter Erik Stiller out of the game.

The game remained tied heading into the ninth, when freshman second baseman Aaron Prince led off with a double to right field. He advanced to third on a single by senior shortstop Steve Young and scored when senior left fielder Eric Fitzgerald grounded into a fielder's choice. Junior Brian Kappel shut down the Elis in the bottom of the frame to close out the 6-5 win.

The next day in Providence, Princeton again started strong, scoring two unearned runs in the first inning. After cutting the lead to 2-1 in the second, Brown (7-14, 4-2) exploded for 10 runs in the bottom of third, sending freshman pitcher Eric Walz to the showers. The Tigers scored four runs in the top of the seventh, but it was too little, too late, and they fell 14-6.

Again, Princeton rebounded in the second game, scoring first for the fourth straight contest. A home run by senior designated hitter Ryan Reich, his second in two days, gave the Tigers a 2-0 lead in the second.

But the Bears roughed up freshman hurler Gavin Fabian to grab a 7-3 advantage after six innings. Princeton fought back, taking advantage of a handful of Brown errors and free passes, to chip away at the deficit each inning, finally tying the score in the eighth.

Junior designated hitter Will Venable then led off the ninth with a double and scored the winning run when Reich doubled one batter latter. Kappel held the Bears scoreless for the final three innings, earning the win in the 8-7 victory.

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Despite their early struggles, the Tigers stand just a game and a half out of first in the Lou Gehrig division, providing hope that another Ivy title is still within reach.

"We haven't hit our stride, but I can't say it worries me," Szymanski said. "We're still confident that we can win a lot of games."