BETHLEHEM, Pa.
? A three-run second inning was all Lehigh needed to hand the Princeton
softball team a 3-1 loss in its final non-league contest of the regular season.
Lehigh pitcher Lisa Sweeney (20-3) was sterling again in her third
appearance all-time against the Tigers, striking out 10 and holding Princeton to four hits.
The Mountain Hawks (32-13-1) had two of their four hits in
the game-deciding second inning and were helped by a booted ball at second
base, a wild pitch and a passed ball. All three runs came with two out.
Princeton (20-21) moved
only two runners into scoring position, with those chances coming in the first
and last innings. Following a second-inning leadoff single by Collette Abbott
and Beth Dalmut reaching on a failed sacrifice bunt attempt, Sweeney retired 15
straight Tigers until a seventh-inning double by Jamie Lettire, who went on to
score Princeton's run on a Dalmut RBI-single.
Kristen Schaus (7-15) threw the first three innings,
allowing three the three runs, two earned, on two hits with four strikeouts. Lettire
closed out the last four frames, also giving up two hits and fanning four.
The Tigers will need to shake the Lehigh loss quickly, with
a crucial four-game series coming against Cornell Friday in Ithaca
and Sunday in Princeton. It is essentially a
best-of-five series, with the teams tied atop the Ivy South at 15-1. If the
teams split the first four games, a fifth game will be played in Princeton next week. The winner of the Ivy South will
host Harvard in the Ivy League Championship Series May 3-4 for a bid to the
NCAA tournament.
