Tigers take Ivy crown

The Tigers (25-22 overall, 20-2 Ivy League) wasted no time in defeating the Crimson (25-22, 14-8) this weekend, 4-2 and 5-1, to take the Ivy League crown. With its victory, Princeton earned an automatic bid to the NCAA regional tournament. Its opponent will be determined in the selection show Sunday, May 11, on ESPNU.

The significance of an Ivy title, the 17th in Tiger history, and a berth in the regional tournament is not lost on this team.

“It means everything,” senior catcher and co-captain Beth Dalmut said. “We’ve been working since the day we got on campus for this moment, and it’s incredible. It speaks to our team unity. Everyone stepped up when they had to. The first game was pretty close, but we got hits when we needed them.”

The first game was indeed tense. The Crimson rocked sophomore starting pitcher Jamie Lettire in the early going, recording two solo home runs in the first two innings. Lettire stayed strong, however, allowing just one Crimson hit after the second inning. The Tiger offense took a few innings to get started but woke up in the third inning. After junior first baseman Erin Miller hit a fly ball off the top of the wall that went for a double, freshman third baseman Megan Weidrick unleashed one of the longest home runs of the season. As the ball soared deep into the right-centerfield trees, there was a clear sense that the momentum was starting to turn.

Weidrick again provided the spark in the sixth inning with a seeing-eye single through the left side. Junior shortstop and co-captain Kathryn Welch scorched a double to right-center, plating Weidrick for the go-ahead run. Sophomore rightfielder Kelsey Quist was next to the plate, launching a 2-2 offering to almost the same spot and giving the Tigers a 4-2 lead. Lettire came on to close the door in the top of the seventh, notching three quick outs and giving Princeton a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series.

Also notable was the flawless defense played by the Tigers, who did not commit any errors on the weekend. In the fifth inning, freshman centerfielder Brittney Scott made the second of two spectacular running, over-the-shoulder catches on the warning track, robbing Harvard slugger Lauren Miller of a potential home run.

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. Schaus, however, was not thinking about the record during the game.

“I really focused on each pitch individually,” she said. “We won the first game today, and I wanted to get it done for all of us.”

Princeton’s offense was determined to provide its starting pitcher with some run support. Wasting little time, Welch, Quist and Lettire did the job in the top of the first, as Lettire drove a low fastball over the leftfield fence. But the Tigers weren’t done. After sophomore second baseman Collette Abbott walked, Dalmut smashed a 2-0 offering to the centerfield wall for an RBI double. Welch rounded out the Tiger scoring in the seventh inning with another RBI double, plating pinch-hitting sophomore Ellen Scott.

Lettire’s home run also cemented her place in the record books, tying Melissa Finley ’05 for Princeton’s single-season record of 14 home runs. Close behind are Welch and Quist, each with 13 long balls on the season.

Welch described the moment for her team.

“This is huge — it’s just such a wonderful feeling,” Welch said. “We’ve played so hard in all of these Ivy games and done well. It’s a perfect ending.”

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Coming off a 1-12 spring break trip, the softball team thought it might be a long season.

But that experience has undeniably benefited the team over the long run, and, seemingly, was great preparation for the upcoming challenges of the regional tournament.

Salcido is confident that the experience toughened up her Tigers.

“This is where the teams we faced early on and some of the heartbreaking games are going to pay off,” Salcido said of Princeton’s upcoming NCAA games.

Though excited about winning the Ivy League, the Tigers are already looking forward to the regional tournament.

“We had a rough time last year [at regionals], and after a rough spring break, we didn’t know what was going to happen,” Lettire said. “But we’re on top of the world right now.”

Dalmut summed up the moment.

“We’re just excited,” Dalmut said. “Anything can happen in regionals. We can’t wait to find out where we are going. It should definitely be an adventure.”