Tigers, Big Red to play for ILCS bid

With four games left in the Ivy League season, the men's baseball team faces a simple choice: win three of them — or go home.

Princeton (14-22 overall, 8-8 Ivy League) currently sits one game behind Cornell (15-18, 9-7) in the Lou Gehrig Division standings. Fittingly enough, the two squads will battle for the title — and the accompanying berth in the Ivy League Championship Series — this weekend, playing a doubleheader at Clarke Field on Friday afternoon before heading north to Ithaca, N.Y., for a Sunday afternoon double dip.

Lately, the two teams have been moving in opposite directions. After starting out impressively in league play, the Tigers have been slipping as of late, winning only one of their past six games.

The slide began with a midweek non-conference loss to Monmouth and hit its peak with Princeton almost being swept at home by Gehrig Division cellar dweller Columbia. The Lions took three of four from the Tigers, who then went on to drop their next contest, 10-0, against St. John's.

Cornell has taken a different path, winning eight of its last 10 league contests. Last weekend, the Big Red was especially impressive, sweeping Penn in a four-game weekend series. Before that, Cornell took three of four from Columbia and one of two from Brown. The Big Red did drop both ends of a doubleheader to Siena on Tuesday, however.

Cornell's winning ways are a far cry from the early season when the team at one point dropped 11 of 13. Many of those losses were against stiff non-conference competition, but the Big Red was also swept by Ivy foes Harvard and Dartmouth.

Big Red balanced

The Big Red's strength comes from a balanced combination of efficient hitting and pitching. The offense struggles to find power from any part of the lineup; Matt Miller leads the team with only two home runs. Only three other players have gone deep this season. In fact, three different Tigers — Venable, Eldridge and Salini — each have more home runs than the entire Cornell team combined.

What the Big Red lack in power, though, it makes up for in solid line drive hitting and smart base running. The team has stolen 42 bases this season compared to its opponents' 31.

The pitching and defense are a solid complement to the offense. While no one on the staff is overpowering, many are very capable of getting the job done. Four pitchers have an earned run average of less than 4.00. Dan Gala has been the leader of the staff with a 3-2 record, a 2.85 ERA and a team-leading 27 strikeouts.

Four hurlers

For the Tigers' staff, junior Erik Stiller has exceeded expectations all season. He currently owns a team-best 6-1 record with a 2.31 ERA. He will get the start in the third game, while sophomore Gavin Fabian will get the nod in the weekend opener on Friday. Fabian will look to this weekend as an opportunity to get an important Ivy win, something that he has struggled to do so far this year. He is currently 2-4 with a 4.36 ERA.

Sophomore Eric Walz will get the start in game four, while freshman Christian Staehely will be on the mound for the second game. Walz and Staehely have combined for an 0-7 record and an average ERA of 4.9.

The offense will look to get things back on track after having struggled for the past few weeks. Last weekend against Columbia, the Tigers were only able to score greater than three runs once. They were also shut out in their midweek contest against St. John's.

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If Princeton can't pick up its offensive production this weekend, the Tigers' season will effectively be over, with only a meaningless non-conference game to play. For a team that hoped to defend its Ivy League, such an outcome is unacceptable.