After spending nearly a month on the road, the baseball team has returned home to Clarke Field to defend its turf and its 2006 Ivy League title. After losing its home opener against Rutgers on Wednesday, Princeton (4-11 overall) begins league play with two games against Brown (5-10) on Saturday and two games against Yale (6-13) on Sunday.
The Ivy League schedule, in which teams play two games within just a few hours, makes a deep pitching lineup essential. So far this season, with the exception of the season opener against Elon, the Tigers have not played more than one game per day. Head coach Scott Bradley has prepared his pitchers, using four against Rutgers on Wednesday.
"As in all of the league games, pitching is the most important aspect of the game," Bradley said. "I believe that our pitching is the key for us in repeating as champs."
One pitcher on whom the Tigers will depend is junior Christian Staehely. He was the only Ivy League player named to the preseason watch list for the 2007 Roger Clemens Award, which is given to the nation's best college pitcher.
"We are working on getting our intensity and consistency up for these upcoming games," Staehely said. "There is really no secret strategy to this game. We need to win by scoring early and often and pitching some great games — that's how we won last year."
One major challenge to Princeton's pitching is Yale's Ryan Lavarnway, who has been named Ivy League Player of the Week for the past two weeks. He is in the midst of an 18-game hitting streak. Lavarnway batted .524 and drove in six runs in five games last week.
The Tigers will also have to look out for Marc Sawyer, whose 65 hits last year rank third all-time at Yale.
Brown also has some noteworthy hitters, including Steve Daniels, who made the Ivy Honor Roll last week for scoring one run and driving in two against Charleston Southern last Saturday.
"I'm sure [Brown and Yale] have a couple good hitters and pitchers," Staehely said, "but it isn't about who is good; it's about who performs. Even after an Ivy series, it is sometimes difficult to measure which team is better, but it is always obvious which team performed better. We hope and think that we will outperform these other teams this weekend."
The Tigers will certainly have their hands full this weekend. They currently have the worst overall record in the Ivy League Gehrig Division and a worse overall record than both Brown and Yale of the Ivy League Rolfe Division.
"Our overall play must be more consistent," Bradley said. "We have played well in spurts, but with four games on the weekend we need to make routine plays and come up with two-out hits. Brown and Yale should be contenders for the league title — they both have a veteran group of players and have played a very difficult early season schedule."
While the Tigers' record does not look promising, all the Ivies are essentially on an even playing field this weekend.
"It is here at Clarke Field this weekend that we can set the tone for the rest of the Ivy season," Staehely said. "This weekend marks the beginning of a new season. It's winning the Ivies that takes a team to the NCAA Regionals, and that's always the primary goal of any team."
The Tigers hope to use their home-field advantage for a strong start to league play.
"Coming back to Clarke Field is definitely something that we have been looking forward to after playing pretty much the first half of our season on the road," senior infielder and catcher Sal Iacono said. "It will be nice to play in front of a home crowd again. We're looking to come out to a strong start this year, and I think that the team is in a good position to do just that."
Past performance aside, the Tigers will have to capitalize on home-field advantage to get the most important month of their season off to an auspicious start.
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