Road trip out West lined up for break

The Capital Classic hosts a variety of tough competition. The Tigers open play today against California (19-9) and hosts Sacramento State (10-10). Tomorrow, they are slated to face Colorado State (13-3) and Cal Poly (9-11), and they will wrap up the tournament against powerhouse Oklahoma (21-5) on Sunday.

Of these five opponents, three are receiving votes in national softball polls and two are former national champions. Oklahoma ? winners of the 2000 Women’s World Series ? is currently ranked No. 9 in the espn.com/USA softball poll, while California and Colorado State garnered votes. California won the Women’s World Series title in 2002.

“We’re playing a lot of big-name teams,” senior catcher and captain Beth Dalmut said. “So we’re going to do whatever we can to get some upsets in there.”

The Tigers will enjoy a two-day break Monday and Tuesday before traveling south to challenge Pacific in a doubleheader. After these two games, Princeton will have to transition quickly to Stanford, where the team will face BYU in an 11 a.m. game Thursday. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the Tigers will play once against No. 7 Stanford and twice each against East Carolina and Wisconsin.

Sophomore outfielder Kelsey Quist said she thinks this challenging schedule will force Princeton to raise its level of play.

“It’s going be good for us that we’re playing tougher teams,” Quist said. “We’ve been playing teams that are ok but not high-level teams. I think a lot of times when we play higher-level teams, we play up to our competition … Kind of what we’ve been doing lately is playing down to the competition.”

As a northern team, the Tigers are coming into this weekend with a disadvantage. In their past two weekends in the South, the team ? which has not yet been able to practice outside ? has played only seven games. Meanwhile, their spring break opponents have played two to three times that number.

“I think it’s great that we’re going to be playing a bunch of games,” Quist said. “We really need the experience out in the field. Since we’ve been down in the Pit not being able to practice outside, we’re all really excited to get out on the field and start playing.”

The team has gone through ups and downs, but Dalmut and Quist both cite pitching as one of the team’s strengths.

“We have three strong pitchers now who are doing great,” Quist said. “I think we will totally be fine in the pitching rotation.”

These pitchers ? senior Kristen Schaus, sophomore Jamie Lettire and freshman Michelle Tolfa ? have posted strong numbers thus far. Schaus in particular has shined, striking out 64 batters this season. She ranks second in Princeton’s all-time rankings with 708 strikeouts, just behind former teammate Erin Snyder ’06.

“Right now we’re trying to put our offense and defense together in one game,” Quist said. “The past couple of tournaments, we’ve either had really strong offense in one game and our defense has been lacking, or the other way around with really strong defense but our offense hasn’t gotten it done.”

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California will serve as a litmus test for the team’s resilience and organization. After lots of playing time in California, the real bulk of the season will begin after spring break and the beginning of outdoor practices and league games.

“If we have a momentum we can take out of California to prove to ourselves that we can win big games, it’s going to be essential for the Ivy League schedule,” Dalmut said.