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Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Princeton Faces Cornell in Must-Win Series
April 26, 2007 | Baseball
Games 35-38 ? Cornell vs. Princeton
Series Info...
GAMETIMES: Saturday and Sunday, April 28 and 29 at 12 noon (Doubleheaders)
SITE: Saturday: Clarke Field (Grass-Princeton, N.J.); Sunday: Hoy Field (FieldTurf-Ithaca, N.Y.)
RECORDS: Princeton (12-22, 8-8 Ivy); Cornell (14-20, 7-9 Ivy)
SERIES RECORD: Princeton leads 122-77-2 overall, 67-34-1 at home, and 55-43-1 at Cornell
LAST GAMES: Princeton won all four games last season (3-0 and 12-8 at Cornell and 4-3 and 12-2 at home)
Projected Pitching Match-Ups
GAME 1: Brad Gemberling (2-0, 1.33) vs. Jim Hyland (4-4, 3.35)
GAME 2: Steven Miller (2-5, 5.60) vs. David Rochefort (0-0, 5.64)
GAME 3: David Hale (2-2, 4.37) vs. Tony Bertucci (1-4, 5.57)
GAME 4: Eric Walz (3-0, 4.14) vs. Walker Toma (4-4, 6.16)
(*Starters are tentative)
The Princeton baseball team enters its final weekend of the regular season needing to win all four of its games against Cornell in order to draw even with idle Penn in the standings and force a one-game playoff for the Gehrig Division title. Weather has already affected the series, pushing Friday's scheduled doubleheader at Clarke Field a day back until Saturday. The series concludes Sunday in Ithaca.
For the second series in a row, Princeton battled back on the second day to sweep its opponent after having been swept the day before. Princeton did it against Columbia after rain pushed Sunday's doubleheaders to Wednesday, and the Tigers did it on Sunday to keep their chances at the Gehrig title alive. Princeton also got a little help from Cornell as the Big Red's win in the second game of Tuesday's doubleheader prevented Penn from winning the title outright.
Penn completes its Ivy schedule with a 12-8 record, while the Tigers now sit at 8-8 after splitting their previous four league weekends. A four-game sweep will move the Tigers' record to 12-8 and force the playoff. The last time there was a Gehrig Division playoff was in 1997 when Princeton and Penn met on a Wednesday for the right to advance to the Ivy League Championship Series.
On the other side of the Ivy League in the Rolfe Division, Brown holds a one-game lead over Harvard with four games remaining. Yale is still alive and is three games back, while 3-13 Dartmouth has been eliminated. This weekend's schedule has Brown playing Yale and Dartmouth facing Harvard. Those are both home-and-home series.
Weather made last week a busy one for the Tigers as Princeton played eight games in a seven-day span, starting last Tuesday at Seton Hall and finishing two days ago at St. John's. The Tigers went 4-4 in the span, picking up four important league wins, two against Columbia and two with their backs to the wall at Penn.
After dropping both games on Saturday to the Quakers, the Tigers had two must-win games on Sunday. The day opened with freshman Brian Berkowitz giving Princeton a 3-0 lead in the second inning of the first game, but Penn erased the lead in the sixth and the game went to extra innings. Both teams had chances to score, but it took until the 10th inning for the Tigers to push across four runs and take the win. Sophomore Dan DeGeorge led off the inning with a double and scored the winning run. Sophomore Brad Gemberling shut down Penn in the bottom of the 10th, just as he had for the previous four innings to get the win in relief.
In the nightcap, Princeton fell behind 6-0 as Penn scored three in the first and fourth innings, but the Tigers began to chip away at the lead, scoring 10 runs over the final four innings to come from behind for a 10-6 win. Senior Aaron Prince had two hits, drove in four runs and scored two to pace Princeton. Senior Sal Iacono also had two hits and drove in three. Sophomore Andrew Doupe's double in the ninth drove in junior Spencer Lucian with what turned out to be the winning run. Senior Eric Walz battled through nine innings to get the complete game win for the Tigers.
Princeton was back in action on Tuesday night against a very good St. John's team that had lost just four of its last 26 games. Princeton scored twice in the fourth inning to knot the score at 2-2, but the Red Storm went ahead with two in the bottom half of the frame and eventually won 6-3. Lucian had two hits in the game.
Before Princeton can look ahead to Penn, it must first tackle Cornell, this weekend's opponent. The Big Red is 14-20 overall and 7-9 in Ivy League play. Cornell has won two of three games, but has also won just twice in its last eight games. The Big Red had Penn and Columbia both take three of four from them in Ivy League series'.
Cornell is the best fielding team in the league and has the league's fourth-best pitching staff with a team ERA of 5.48, slightly better than Princeton's 5.60. Cornell is batting .263 as a team, 26 points below Princeton, which is hitting at .289.
Princeton leads its all-time series with Cornell 122-77-2 and is 67-34-1 at home and 55-43-1 in Ithaca. Princeton won all four games between the teams last season and has won five-straight in the series. The teams split in 2005, while Princeton took three of four the previous two seasons.
Last year Princeton started its four-game sweep of Cornell with Erik Stiller's complete-game three-hitter in a 3-0 win at Cornell, in which junior Micah Kaplan homered. Princeton made it a sweep that day, using a five-run ninth to jump to a 12-8 win. Iacono and Lucian both drove in three in the game.
Two days later at Clarke Field, Princeton won 4-3 in nine innings when Lucian hit a walk-off home to lead off the inning. Princeton swept that day with a 12-2 win in the nightcap as Lucian had four RBIs and Princeton got solid pitching from junior Christian Staehely and Gemberling.