With only two weekends left of conference play, the baseball team went into a four-game series against division foe Penn (10-27 overall, 5-15 Ivy League) at home this past weekend. The team cruised to a Saturday sweep of the Quakers, but fell apart on Sunday as Penn returned the favor, taking both games from the Tigers.
Fortunately for Princeton (21-16, 9-7), the consequences of the disappointing weekend could have been worse. Going into the final four conference games this weekend against Cornell (10-25, 5-10), the Tigers still hold a commanding lead in the Lou Gehrig Division. They stand alone in first place with Columbia two-and-a-half games back and the Big Red three-and-a-half back. Their opponent this past weekend, Penn, sits at the bottom of the division, a full six games back.
Princeton's play seemed to be dictated by the weather this weekend, as they swept on Saturday under sunny skies, but were winless on Sunday in the rain.
The first game on Saturday was entertaining throughout, and the sixth inning was especially enjoyable for the Tigers. After getting down 4-0 — all the runs were unearned — in the first frame, Princeton evened things up in the second and third, scoring two runs in each. In the second, junior rightfielder Adam Balkan hit a two-run double and in the third, freshman third baseman Sal Iacono came through with another RBI double.
The teams continued to battle back and forth. After the Quakers put up two runs in the fifth, the Tigers answered with a two-run blast from senior first baseman Ryan Reich.
All of this was just a precursor to the fireworks of the sixth inning, however. After Penn put up three runs in its half of the inning, pushing the score to 11-8, the Tigers went on an offensive rampage. The stat line speaks for itself.
Eighteen batters, 13 runs, seven hits, four walks, and one hit-batsman.
Much of the credit for the offensive surge must be given to the Quaker pitching staff that struggled mightily throughout the inning. This was much to the delight of the Princeton fans, who took advantage of the situation by providing a great deal of Newman's Day-induced heckling.
Key hits of the inning included a two-RBI double by Iacono and Reich's second two-run round-tripper of the game. All of this led to a lopsided final score of 22-11.
The game immediately following was another offensive explosion for Princeton as it put up 14 more runs in the contest and held Penn to only one. The final result of the game was never really in doubt, as junior centerfielder B.J Szymanski started off the scoring in the first and second innings, plating a run and scoring himself in each inning. After two, the Tigers led 4-0.
Reich capped a tremendous individual day with a three-run shot in the sixth. He hit three dingers on the day and drove in nine runs.
Sophomore pitcher Erik Stiller took the victory in the second game, while senior Brian Biegen pitched only one inning, but still picked up the win in the first contest.
Sunday was a disappointing end to a weekend that started off so well. The Tigers got down early in the first game, 5-1, after three innings. Szymanski scored on an error for the lone Princeton run. The Tigers tried to stage a comeback, as they plated a run in both the fourth and fifth, but surrendered three runs in the final three innings to allow the Quakers to pick up the 8-3 victory.
The final game of the series started even worse than the previous one for Princeton, as the Tigers gave up four runs in the first inning alone, and then allowed four more in the fifth to get down 8-0 before their first score.
The first run for the Tigers came in the fifth off a bomb from senior catcher Tim Lahey that cleared the fence for his sixth homer of the year. Another run was scored later in the inning on a bases-loaded walk to push the score to 9-2.
Princeton then put a five-spot on the board in the seventh inning with Lahey again leading the charge with a two-run double to left field. Lahey then scored himself on a passed ball.
With the score 9-7, the Tigers gave themselves several opportunities to make up even more ground, but stranded a pair of runners in each of the last three innings and walked away with a 9-7 loss.
If Princeton can manage to avoid a sweep this weekend against Cornell, it will be on its way to the Ivy League Championship series that pits the two division winners against each other at the end of the season. The opponent will be either Harvard or Dartmouth. Currently, the Big Green is on top of the Red Rolfe Division, while the Crimson sit two games back.
The Red Rolfe Division is considerably stronger than the Tigers' Lou Gehrig Division. In the first few weeks of the season, the two divisions played each other, with Red Rolfe teams usually coming out on top. Not one Red Rolfe team has more than ten conference losses, while three of the four do in the Gehrig Division.
"Our division is definitely weaker, but we're still confident," junior pitcher Ross Ohlendorf said. "We've had a lot of guys step up lately, so we should be okay."
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