Princeton University Athletics
Princeton Softball Adds Lehigh for Tuesday Twinbill
May 08, 2006 | Softball
May 8, 2006
PRINCETON, N.J. - The Princeton softball team's wait between games leading up to the NCAA Regional just got a little shorter. Head coach Maureen Barron announced Monday afternoon that the Tigers (33-16) will host Lehigh (37-11) Tuesday for a 3 p.m. doubleheader ahead of Sunday's announcement of the NCAA field. Regional competition runs May 19-21.
So we meet again: The Tigers and Mountain Hawks played a single game April 6 at Lehigh which the home team won 2-1. Second-inning doubles by Amanda Erickson and Calli Jo Varner gave Princeton a 1-0 lead, but Lehigh scored two in the fourth on the help of two errors and a triple by Julie Sterrett to take the lead for good.
Meeting of champions: Though only one of the two teams are officially headed to the NCAA tournament as yet, both Princeton and Lehigh rolled through their respective league schedules. Lehigh finished 19-1 in the Patriot League with a one-run decision to Holy Cross as its only blemish. The Mountain Hawks host the four-team Patriot tournament this weekend. Princeton was 12-2 in Ivy play, losing a pair of one-run games to Harvard 1-0 and Cornell 3-2.
Arms of the Hawks: Lehigh's Kate Sweeney enters Tuesday's games with a 24-3 record and an 0.88 ERA. Against the Tigers, Sweeney got the win and threw the first four innings, allowing a run on three hits and a walk, striking out four. Kate Arico (11-6, 1.71) threw the last three innings, allowing two hits and picking up the save, striking out four.
And the Tigers too: Kristen Schaus threw against the Mountain Hawks earlier this year, allowing just three hits in six innings while being charged with one of Lehigh's two runs, striking out six with a walk. At present, Schaus is Princeton's single-season strikeout record holder at 235 and has won her last six decisions to improve to 16-8. Erin Snyder (16-5, 0.79) carries an amazing strikeout-to-walk ratio of 32.6:1 into Tuesday's doubleheader, making Princeton one of only two schools in all of Division I to have two pitchers ranked in the top 20 of the NCAA's strikeouts-per-seven innings list as of last week. Six-time national champion Arizona is the other. Contact hitter: Princeton junior centerfielder Stephanie Steel entered last week as the fifth-toughest player to strike out in all of Division I and has done nothing to change that since. She hasn't struck out since April 22, a span of 11 games. And in each of those 11 games, Steel has gotten at least one hit. In 142 at bats, the .282 hitter has struck out only five times.
Up next: The next important date on the Princeton softball calendar is Sunday, when the NCAA field will be announced at 3:30 p.m. on ESPNEWS.