Road trip home not so sweet

Though the schedule officially listed the baseball team's three games in Houston this past weekend as road contests, many Tigers felt more at home basking in the warm Texan sun than they feel when freezing their faces off in New Jersey.

Princeton's roster features no fewer than eight Lone Star Staters, including six from the Space City itself, but the homecoming reception they got was anything but warm. To quote an old Texas saying, the Tigers were made to feel about as welcome as a skunk at a lawn party as the University of Houston Cougars (11-9) won all three games by a combined score of 33-4.

"Houston is a very competitive Conference USA team, and we knew that coming in," junior pitcher Christian Staehely said. "But we are a very competitive team as well, and losing three games to Houston isn't something that we are taking lightly."

Princeton (1-5) had a bad start to the weekend Friday night, mustering a mere pair of hits in a 5-0 shutout loss. Houston's starting pitcher, freshman southpaw Wes Musick, became the first Cougar lefty in over four years to strike out 10 batters in a game, whiffing 10 in seven innings of work while surrendering only one hit, a single by senior catcher Sal Iacono in the third.

Junior pitcher Steven Miller started the game with a scoreless first but gave up a run on a sacrifice fly in the second. Houston then led off the third with back-to-back triples and an RBI groundout to bring the score to 3-0. A solo shot in the sixth off freshman Langford Stuber and another run in the seventh brought the Cougars' final run total to five.

The following night brought no solace to the Tigers. Native Houstonian Staehely, pitching under a familiar sky, gave up seven runs in less than four innings' work before senior Eric Walz replaced him on the mound.

Walz fared even worse, surrendering 10 runs (nine earned) in two innings to the red-hot Houston hitters. Two pitchers and a handful of runs later, the slaughter mercifully ended, with the Cougars' offensive totals standing at 20 runs on 21 hits.

Not wanting to be shut out two nights in a row, Princeton managed to put up a digit other than zero on the scoreboard Saturday when Iacono singled home freshman shortstop Greg Van Horn in the top of the sixth. To the chagrin of the Tigers, they failed to bring another man home and trudged off the field on the wrong side of a 20-1 embarrassment.

Determined to make up for the previous days' lackluster performances, Princeton's bats immediately came to life Sunday afternoon as Van Horn and senior leftfielder Aaron Prince started the tilt with a bang, or rather a bang bang, connecting for back-to-back home runs to give the Tigers an early 2-0 advantage.

After Houston knotted up the score at two in the bottom of the third, Princeton struck back in the seventh when junior first baseman Micah Kaplan brought home junior centerfielder Spencer Lucian on a single to right.

The lead wouldn't last long, however, as the Cougars exploded for four runs in the bottom of the inning off freshman relief pitcher David Hale to regain the lead for good. They added two more in the eighth to seal the victory at 8-3 and sent the Tigers home with nothing to show for its three-game road trip but high ERAs and low batting averages.

"Originally I was glad and proud to play in my hometown, but after the losses this weekend, especially the game that I started in, I have been left with a bad taste in my mouth," Staehely said.