Baseball: Perfect league record to be tested in New England

Though the Crimson and Big Green pose different challenges on paper, the Tigers are not taking any of their games for granted.

“One big thing that coach always tells us is to throw away records and stats when you play Ivy League teams,” senior third baseman Matt Connor said. “We’re expecting two teams that are really close to us. The big thing is we’ve got to keep playing the way we’ve been playing.”

Princeton’s young pitching staff has played a pivotal role in the team’s recent winning streak. Sophomore pitchers Matt Bowman and Zak Hermans will start the Tigers’ two games against Harvard. Bowman and Hermans currently lead the Tigers with earned run averages of 3.55 and 2.86, respectively. On Sunday, freshman Mike Ford and senior Matt Grabowski, who recently moved to the starting rotation after a pair of impressive performances, will take the mound against Dartmouth. Ford allowed only one run in a seven-inning complete game against Yale on Sunday.

“The staff has done a really good job,” Connor said. “More than anything, what they’ve done is they’re pretty much fearless. They’re throwing strikes. If you look at the games that we lost earlier, we had a lot of walks. Our guys have just gone out and attacked hitters.”

The Tigers hope this trend continues against the Big Green, who won the Ivy League title last season and were selected as the preseason league favorite this year. Shortstop Joe Sclafani, who is currently third in the league with a .417 batting average, leads off the talented Dartmouth line-up that also features second baseman Ennis Coble (.418 batting average) and catcher Chris O’Dowd (.333).

Sclafani also leads the Ivy League in slugging percentage and is tied for the lead in runs scored while Coble has the best on-base percentage in the Ancient Eight and O’Dowd is tied for the league lead with five home runs.

While the Crimson have a less powerful line-up than the Big Green, the team will likely test junior catcher Sam Mulroy’s arm. Harvard outfielders Dillon O’Neill and Samuel Franklin are tied for second in the league with 10 stolen bases each.

The Tigers hope that their experience playing in a number of tight games earlier this year will benefit the team as it continues the most important stretch of its season.

“Even in spring break, we were in a lot of close games,” Connor said. “We were up late in the game and were giving games away. We’ve done a really good job since spring break of winning those close games. We had a couple breaks go our way and we’re all just clicking right now compared to what we were doing before.”