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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton Opens Ivy Season With Harvard and Dartmouth at Home
March 31, 2006 | Baseball
March 31, 2006
PRINCETON - The Princeton baseball team opens its 2006 Ivy League schedule at home on Saturday and Sunday afternoons as Harvard and Dartmouth visit Clarke Field, each for a doubleheader. The weekend will feature the team's that have been atop the league for the past decade as Princeton, Dartmouth, Harvard and Cornell are the only three teams to have played in the year-end Ivy League Championship Series in the span.
Since 1996, Princeton has appeared in nine league championship series' while Harvard has made seven appearances and Dartmouth has made three. Cornell has one. Also since 1996, Princeton and Harvard have won all 10 league championships, each having taken five titles.
Princeton enters the game following its first tie in almost 17 years, a 3-3 deadlock at Rutgers on Wednesday afternoon. Princeton jumped to a 3-0 lead in the game, but three Rutgers runs in the eighth tied the game and neither team could score in two innings of extra play before the game had to be called because of darkness. It was the 11th tie in Princeton baseball history and the first since a 6-6 11-inning tie at Florida Atlantic on April 18, 1989.
The Princeton pitching staff continues to lead the way for the Tigers as the Rutgers game marked the fifth time in six games that Princeton pitchers held their opponents to three runs or less. The performance lowered Princeton's Ivy-best team ERA to 4.49 as seven different pitchers were used in the game.
Offensively the Tigers had nine hits in Wednesday's game. That number was the highest in the last six games as the Princeton bats hope to heat up some more this weekend against Harvard. Entering league play, Princeton's team batting average ranks last of the eight Ivy teams.
Junior Gavin Fabian and sophomore Christian Staehely each pitched a hitless inning of relief in the Rutgers game, while freshman Brad Gemberling and sophomore Evan Alexander and Reid Peyton kept Rutgers off the scoreboard for two innings apiece. Sophomore Steven Miller pitched two-and-a-third innings of scoreless relief. At the plate, senior Zach Wendkos and sophomore Spencer Lucian each had two hits, while freshman Derek Beckman hit a sac fly, freshman Dan Degeorge had an RBI-triple and sophomore Micah Kaplan had a run-scoring triple. Junior Aaron Prince singled in the game and leads the team with a .389 batting average. He has hit safely in all games played this season. Wendkos (.356) and senior Andrew Salini (.345) are the three Princeton batters above .500.
Harvard is 4-9-1 this season and comes to Princeton on the tail end of its Spring Break trip. Harvard won on Thursday at St. Thomas, but was winless in its previous three games, losing to Florida Atlantic and Florida International, and tying Barry. Harvard also has wins against Lynn, Jacksonville and NYIT. Last season the teams split games in Cambridge with Princeton winning 7-2 and losing 13-8.
Dartmouth is 3-9 on the year with a win in its last outing, 13-11 at Quinnipiac. The Big Green also has defeated Cal Poly and Pepperdine this season. Wednesday's win at Quinnipiac snapped a three-game losing streak that came on Dartmouth's Spring Break trip to California and Washington.
After the weekend Princeton plays a mid-week game at Monmouth on Tuesday afternoon.