Pitchers' duels not favoring Princeton

The Tigers were five-hit in the first game against Yale, a 3-2 loss, but stellar pitching from junior Brad Gemberling, who gave up three runs, two of them earned, kept the game close.

“Brad battled the whole game, and we did not give him enough run support,” junior shortstop Dan DeGeorge said. “He was spotting his fastball, and he has one of the best sliders I have ever seen.”

Junior outfielder Derek Beckman scored in the top of the first inning on a single from sophomore catcher Jack Murphy, and Murphy added an RBI double in the sixth, but the two runs were not enough. The Bulldogs tied the score with an unearned run in the bottom of the first inning and took the lead for good in the fifth inning, when they scored twice off Gemberling.

In the nightcap, the Tigers spotted Yale a two-run lead in the early going but battled back for an 8-3 victory. Down 2-0 in the fifth, Princeton got three straight singles to load the bases and then manufactured four runs. A Yale error allowed Beckman to reach base and plated two, and back-to-back groundouts from DeGeorge and junior first baseman Adrian Turnham brought home two more.

The Tigers, however, were not done scoring. Sophomore outfielder Jon Broscious hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning, then added a solo home run, his third of the season, in the eighth. Broscious capped his day with an RBI single in the ninth.

“Jon was huge [against Yale],” DeGeorge said. “Our bats were quiet in the first game, and Jon really jumpstarted the offense in the second.”

Following the split at Yale, the Tigers travelled to Providence, R.I., for Sunday’s doubleheader against Brown, last season’s Ivy League champion. Game one featured a pitching duel between the Bears’ Anthony Vita and Tiger sophomore righthander David Hale, ultimately resulting in a 2-1 Princeton loss. Vita held the Tigers to three hits while striking out two and walking one, and Hale, the Tigers’ best pitcher this season, held Bears batters to just two hits while striking out five and walking three.

“The weather was really brutal,” DeGeorge said of the two games, played in a 30-degree drizzle, “but Hale was incredible.”

The story of the game, however, was the Tiger defense, whose two errors led to both Brown runs. In the first inning, a throwing error by DeGeorge allowed a Bears baserunner to score from second, and in the sixth, a throwing error by Hale allowed the leadoff man to reach second. The go-ahead run would later come home on an RBI single.

“Errors are a part of the game,” DeGeorge said of the miscues. “When they happen, you just have to move on to your next fielding opportunity or next at-bat.”

Princeton scored a run in the fourth inning on a Turnham walk, a Murphy double and an RBI single from senior third baseman Spencer Lucian, but it was the only run Vita surrendered.

Much like the nightcap at Yale on Saturday, the second game at Brown turned into an offensive explosion. Brown scored once in the first, but Princeton took a 2-1 lead in the second on RBI from Broscious and senior outfielder Micah Kaplan.

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After Princeton opened up a 5-3 lead with two runs in the third and one in the fourth, the Bears retook the lead, chasing senior starter Steven Miller with five runs in the bottom of the fourth inning.

The Tigers responded, however, with six runs in the seventh inning to take a lead that they would not relinquish. After a Beckman walk and a DeGeorge single, Princeton got RBI hits from Murphy, Lucian, Hale and Broscious, whose two-run home run was his third of the weekend. The Bears scored once in the seventh and twice in the eighth, but Princeton added one in the eighth and two in the ninth to hold on for the 14-11 victory.

“Winning games like this says a lot about this team’s character,” DeGeorge said. “Every season has games that you need to grind out, and we were able to put up the runs to do that today. That toughness is great indication of where our team is.”

These four games conclude the Tigers’ non-division Ivy League schedule. They play at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday at home against Monmouth (12-8) before four away games against Columbia (8-16, 4-1) this weekend to kick off the all-important 12-game Gehrig Division schedule.