After the Scarlet Knights (16-21 overall) tagged Princeton (11-19, 8-0 Ivy League)for 16 runs in a pair of decisive wins, the only sprinting the Tigers were doing was the mandatory kind.
The Tigers dropped the opener, 9-5, and followed it up with a 7-2 loss in the nightcap, leading head coach Trina Salcido to keep her players an extra 15 minutes after the final pitch to run post-game wind sprints.
Salcido called the decision a team matter and would not comment on the extra running, but as one Princeton player after another bent over to catch her breath between sprints, it was clear that Salcido was urging the Tigers to push themselves.
“We were in a comfort zone coming into this game, feeling confident, and a win or a loss out of conference isn’t going to change that,” Salcido said. “But we have stuff to work on.”
Among the foremost concerns for Princeton after yesterday’s losses is the status of its ace starting pitcher, senior Kristen Schaus (4-13). Schaus started both games against Rutgers, taking the loss in each of them and allowing seven earned runs over three-and-a-third innings.
Between starts, Schaus had her ankle taped by the team’s trainer. Salcido said that Schaus turned her ankle in practice, and that it was being exacerbated by a groove in the dirt behind the pitcher’s rubber, which grows deeper as the season wears on.
Schaus was staked to a 4-0 lead in the first inning of the opener yesterday thanks to some big hits from the heart of the Tiger batting order. Junior leftfielder Brianna Moreno started the rally by beating out a bunt down the first base line. A sacrifice by freshman third baseman Megan Weidrick moved Moreno to second, and junior shortstop Kathryn Welch brought her home with a single up the middle.
Having gotten on board thanks to the small-ball approach, Princeton added to its lead via the long ball. After sophomore rightfielder Kelsey Quist walked, sophomore first baseman Jamie Lettire belted a no-doubt round-tripper over the fence in left-center, putting the Tigers up 4-0. The blast moved Lettire, who was celebrating her 20th birthday yesterday, into a tie with Quist for the team lead in home runs with eight.
Rutgers began its comeback with a solo homer in the top of the second, then surged into the lead on the strength of a career day by shortstop Kate Valiante. The Scarlet Knights’ cleanup hitter put her team ahead 5-4 with a grand slam in the top of the third inning, matching her home-run count for the entire season.
Valiante wasn’t finished, though, and with her team up 6-5 in the sixth inning, she put the game away with a three-run drive over the centerfield fence that gave Rutgers its final margin of victory. With seven RBI during the opener alone, Valiante matched the output of Princeton’s entire team over the course of both games.
Needing to find a way to cool off Valiante and the rest of the Scarlet Knights’ lineup, Salcido again gave the ball to Schaus to start the nightcap.
“We always ask her how she’s feeling, and she had only thrown two and a third innings,” Salcido said. “We wanted to give her a chance to go out and have a better start.”
Rutgers would not be denied, however, and quickly loaded the bases in the first inning. The first of those runners scored when a Schaus pitch sailed over the head of freshman catcher Brittney Scott, and a double to right by Sarah Kalka plated two more, putting the Scarlet Knights ahead, 3-0.
Moreno scored on a Welsh sacrifice fly in the bottom of the inning to pull the Tigers to within two, and Lettire kept Rutgers off the board in the second inning after replacing Schaus on the mound. Princeton’s defense struggled in the third inning, though, as a pair of errors led to an unearned run that put the Scarlet Knights up 4-1. Rutgers scored three more unanswered runs over the next two innings to take a six-run lead going into the sixth.
In the bottom of the sixth, Welsh scored on an RBI groundout by sophomore second baseman Collette Abbott to make the score 7-2, but Princeton could not come any closer. The loss extended the Tigers’ non-conference losing streak to 12 games.
Princeton’s Ivy League prospects remain bright, however, and after Salcido’s post-game message, the Tigers know they can’t let a pair of non-conference losses make them stop running.
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