Tigers win two versus Lehigh

Even the wind's hard blowing from rightfield was not enough to knock down Princeton's home run power as the softball team (21-8 overall, 2-0 Ivy League) swept Lehigh (22-6) twice on Thursday afternoon. Two great pitching performances and timely home runs made for 9-1 and 3-1 victories for the Tigers.

The first game was fairly quiet for Princeton until the third inning, when sophomore catcher Ty Ries smacked a double. Freshman shortstop Lauren Bierman then bunted the runner over. With Lehigh's failure to convert on the throw, Biermann got on base, and Reis gave Princeton its first score of the day.

Sophomore third baseman Tiffany Andras then hit a bloop single to put two Tigers on. Two walks to junior pitcher Erin Snyder and senior centerfielder Melissa Finley gave Princeton its second run. Princeton's scoring ended there, with the bases loaded.

Snyder had yet another good game on the mound. She got ahead in the count against most batters waving at high fastballs that they had no chance of catching , to using her strikeouts to end any rallies. Her off-speed pitches were working well and kept Lehigh at bay for most of the game.

In Princeton's fourth, freshman leftfielder Beth Dalmut led off with a home run to left-centerfield, her first as a Tiger. Princeton, now with nine players with home runs this season, continues to post solid power numbers spread out among its players.

In the bottom of the fifth, the Tigers started to do some real damage — less with power and more with good at-bats. With one out, Finley got on base after a hard-hit ball shot past Lehigh's second baseman. Lehigh's pitcher then walked Finley and junior first baseman Amanda Erickson to load the bases again.

After Calli Varner grounded out and a forced out was made at home, Dalmut again struck, this time with an RBI single to leftfield, her second run batted in of the day. Reis then followed with a gap shot which scored two runs. Dalmut tried to dodge the catcher's tag to make the third run of the play but got caught on a close play at the plate.

In the top of the sixth, Lehigh notched its only run due to a series of slight mishaps by Princeton. After Lehigh's Taryn Hanley walked, second baseman Jessica Young started it off with a line drive right back at Snyder. The ball took a bad hop and got past her, putting runners on first and second.

After Snyder struck out Lehigh catcher Lauren Haney, the ball got away from Erickson, who recovered it and threw to third looking for the tag-out to end the inning. The throw came in too low to Andras at third, though, and it kicked up, resulting in loaded bases. A passed ball then let in Lehigh's only run, to which Snyder promptly responded with a critical strikeout to end the small, but potentially deadly, rally.

Princeton did not waste any time to end the game the next inning, run-ruling Lehigh and winning the game with a final score of 9-1. Bierman started the inning with a gap shot to left-center, and the pitcher then hit Motal and walked Finley to load the bases for Snyder. Snyder hit one back up the middle and, while trying to get the forced out at home, the ball was thrown too far to the catcher's right, and it got away, leading to two more Princeton runs. Heads-up base-running put Finley at third for Erickson, whose sacrifice fly ended the game with a big win for the Tigers.

The second game saw a pitchers' duel between Princeton's freshman Kristen Schaus and Lehigh's Kate Arico. Lehigh threatened in the second with a lead off double by catcher Mary Wieder. Hanley then followed with a single, which sent Wieder around the bags gunning for home, only to be thrown out by a perfect throw from center by Finley to keep the game scoreless. Schaus cleaned up, only allowing one more single, with two strikeouts to end the inning.

Lehigh struck again in the top of the fourth with a bloop double by Young into leftfield. After a bunt and a double, Schaus looked like she had turned the inning around with a big strikeout of outfielder Julie Sterret. Lehigh outfielder Whitney Schenbeck then notched a hard grounder right under shortstop Christina Cobb-Adams' glove to give Lehigh its first run of the game. For the first time that day, Princeton needed to play catch—up if the team was going to come away with the sweep.

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The umpires seemed to shrink Schaus' strike zone as the day wore on. A lot of the close fastballs on the outside part of the plate were called balls. This led to most of the pitching problems and lengthened the game considerably for Schaus.

Princeton needed one run to draw even, and that one run would come in the bottom of the fifth, when Varner hit a shot off the foul pole and was greeted by a revitalized team as she rounded the bases. The tough left-to-right wind was not enough to blow the ball foul, and Princeton was now on the board and back in the game.

The score remaind 1-1 until the bottom of the seventh. Snyder started the inning off with a pop out to shallow left, but Erickson followed it up with a walk to get on the bag just in time to bring Princeton's fifth-inning hero, Calli Varner, to the plate. The Lehigh pitcher left one fat, and Varner did not miss it. She cranked a shot deep over the leftfield wall, a definitive blast to end the game and a great day for Princeton.