Twenty wins later, the Ivy League lay flattened, and the Tigers were headed to softball’s Big Dance.
Princeton clinched the Ivy League South Division behind an 18-2 regular season before winning the first two games of a three-game playoff against North Division winner Harvard. The Ivy League champs earned an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament but were knocked out in the regional round.
“It was definitely a pretty tumultuous season,” senior pitcher Kristen Schaus, Ivy League Pitcher of the Year, said after the team’s season-ending loss to Lehigh. “But I’m really proud of myself and everyone for just sticking it out and getting through it and making the most of it.”
The Tigers (25-24 overall, 20-2 Ivy League) found only five victories outside of the conference this season and failed to find any more after dropping two games and ending their season at the NCAA softball regional in Amherst, Mass.
Princeton lost its first game to host No. 20 UMass in a 6-0 decision, and Lehigh defeated the Tigers 7-4 in the second game of the double-elimination tournament to end their season.
The UMass game, originally scheduled for Friday, May 16, was delayed by rain until Saturday morning, and the Tigers could not overcome UMass star Brandice Balschimiter, the nation’s ERA leader.
“In hindsight, we definitely didn’t come out as sharp [Saturday] as I think we felt [Friday],” Schaus said.
Against Lehigh, Princeton took an early 2-0 lead behind sophomore first-team All-Ivy outfielder Kelsey Quist’s 14th home run of the season. Lehigh responded with a quiet second inning, an explosive third and a two-run homer, bringing the score to 6-2.
A comeback nearly materialized behind junior first baseman Erin Miller’s home run, but the Mountain Hawks held on for the win.
The Tigers wasted no time two weeks prior in defeating the Crimson (25-22, 14-8), 4-2 and 5-1, to take the Ivy League crown and its automatic NCAA bid.
The Crimson tagged Lettire for two runs early in the first game, but the sophomore co-Ivy League Player of the Year settled to shut out the visitors for the remainder of the game. Meanwhile, the offense slowly gained momentum to overtake North Division winner Harvard.
Head coach Trina Salcido’s strategy of saving senior starting pitcher Kristen Schaus for the second game of the day paid off in the nightcap. Entering the game with 816 career strikeouts, Schaus was a mere four behind Princeton record-holder Erin Snyder ’06. In her final Ivy League game, Schaus showed exactly how she racked up all those punchouts. The Crimson offense was all but silenced by her fastball-changeup combination, notching a mere four hits and scoring only one run. Schaus recorded eight strikeouts, setting the Princeton record at 824. She finished the season with 833. Schaus, however, was not thinking about the record during the game.
“I really focused on each pitch individually,” she said after the win. “We won the first game today, and I wanted to get it done for all of us.”
Despite the team’s non-conference struggles and the season’s distinct peaks and troughs, Salcido, who ended her first season as Princeton’s head coach with the Lehigh loss, remained optimistic for the program’s future.
“We’ve set the tone for how we want to grow and move forward,” Salcido said after the Lehigh loss. “Getting here was phenomenal. As a team, what a great effort.”
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