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Princeton University Athletics
1997-98 Baseball Season in Review
August 18, 1999 | Baseball
All of the planning and preparation in the world can't overcome the will of Mother Nature as the Princeton baseball team found out in 1998. The season began and ended with rain delays, but in between the sun shone on the Tigers as they racked up 25 wins and earned their third straight Gehrig Division title.
First-year head coach Scott Bradley took his Tigers down to North Carolina in mid March for a 10-game spring break schedule including two games versus his alma mater, the North Carolina Tar Heels. Steady rains for the last half of the trip forced cancellation of five games and sent the Tigers packing with a 3-2 record.
As the rains continued to fall up and down the east coast, Princeton moved its scheduled home opener to Monmouth, where the Tigers fell to the Hawks 7-4. When the sun finally broke through the clouds, the Tigers came alive, winning two games against Wagner at home and taking both ends of a doubleheader with Monmouth to avenge the earlier mid-week loss.
In 1997 the Harvard-Princeton matchup provided some of the most exciting baseball played in the Ivy League, so it was only fitting that the Tigers would open conference play with a doubleheader against the Rolfe Division foe. After dropping the first game 6-3, the Tigers responded with a solid overall performance and a 10-2 victory in Game 2. Leading the offense for Princeton was freshman designated hitter Andrew Hanson who was 2 for 3 including a three-run homer, the first of his young career.
The Tigers followed that win with a doubleheader victory over Dartmouth the following afternoon. Asher Griffin, Princeton's starting second baseman, chose the bottom of the seventh inning to smash his first career home run, giving the Tigers a thrilling 2-1 win in Game 2.
The second weekend of league play should have been a duel between the pitchers and batters of each team, but once again Mother Nature interfered. Against Brown, heavy hitting combined with extremely windy conditions led to pitching nightmares as the two teams finished with 54 total hits, including eight home runs. The Tigers followed the doubleheader split at Brown with two pitching gems in two wins over Yale. Joe Machado threw a complete game in the opener, and the Tigers' offense recorded 19 runs in the second-game shutout of the Bulldogs. Justin Griffin was named the Ivy League Player of the Week for his 7-for-13 performance over the weekend.
Two of Princeton's toughest losses of the season came in back-to-back doubleheaders against Columbia, but the Tigers followed with a 16-8 schooling of LIU and a win over Temple.
In an important conference series with Penn, Princeton took three of four games to remain a game ahead of Cornell for the Division title. In Game 1, Bryan Stroh threw a three-hitter for his third complete game of the season. Freshman Max Krance was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week for his strong performances.
Facing the final weekend of regular-season league action, the Tigers needed two victories over Cornell to advance to the championship series. Princeton accomplished its goal and did so in the most dramatic fashion as freshman Jon Watterson hit the game-winning single with two outs in the bottom of the ninth for the 4-3 overtime victory in Game 4.
Krance was once again honored as Rookie of the Week for his efforts, while teammate Jason Koonin was named the Player of the Week.
It seemed only fitting that the season should end for the Tigers the way it started, so Mother Nature delivered more than a week's worth of steady rains that forced the best-of-three Ivy League championship series with Harvard to be first delayed and then moved. As the Gehrig Division winner, Princeton was to host the Crimson at Clarke Field on May 9th and 10th, but the field was unplayable. The games eventually were moved to Yale Field in New Haven on May 12, and the Tigers suffered two losses to Harvard, who advanced to the NCAA play-in for the second-consecutive year.
First-team All-Ivy selection Mike Hazen was selected in the 31st round of the draft by the San Diego Padres. Freshmen Andrew Hanson and Max Krance along with relief pitcher Howard Horn were second-team All-Ivy selections and Krance earned the distinction of Ivy League Rookie of the Year after finishing the season with a team-leading batting average of .411.
Results
25-14 overall, 13-7 Ivy3/14 at Elon W 4-2 at Elon W 4-3 3/15 at Elon W 8-3 3/16 at N.C. State L 6-5 3/17 at UNC L 6-4 3/24 at Monmouth L 7-4 3/28 Wagner W 5-2 Wagner W 5-3 3/29 at Monmouth W 7-2 at Monmouth W 11-4 3/31 at Rutgers L 10-6 4/4 Harvard L 6-3 Harvard W 10-2 4/5 Dartmouth W 2-1 Dartmouth W 10-4 4/7 at Rider L 8-7 4/10 at Brown L 11-10 at Brown W 13-9 4/11 at Yale W 5-3 at Yale W 19-0 4/16 St. Peter's W 13-6 4/18 at Columbia W 10-3 at Columbia L 6-2 4/20 at Columbia W 5-1 at Columbia L 10-11 4/21 at Long Island Univ. W 8-6 4/22 Temple W 5-1 4/25 Pennsylvania W 6-1 Pennsylvania W 10-3 4/27 Pennsylvania L 8-1 Pennsylvania W 8-2 4/29 at Lehigh W 9-7 5/1 at Cornell W 8-6 at Cornell L 5-3 5/3 Cornell L 4-1 Cornell W 4-3 5/6 at Seton Hall W 9-8 5/12 vs. Harvard # L 13-6 vs. Harvard # L 13-4 # - Ivy League championship, New Haven, Conn.