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Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Ivy Baseball Slate Kicks Off with Brown and Yale this Weekend
April 01, 2011 | Baseball
Princeton improved to 5-13 overall with a 2-1 10 inning win at Seton Hall on Wednesday as four Tiger relievers teamed up to limit the Pirates to just two hits in the Tiger win. Matt Grabowski and David Palms both pitched three scoreless innings, while Matt Welsh and Ryan Makis threw two innings apiece. Only Welsh gave up a run as a hit batsman and a base-hit allowed Seton Hall to score its lone run. Makis got the win and lowered his ERA to 0.93, the best in the Tiger bullpen.
Offensively, Princeton collected nine hits in the win with Jonathan York accounting for three of those on a double and two singles. Alex Flink and Matt Bowman had two this each. Flink's first hit was a pinch-hit double that plated the first Tiger run and he doubled again in his next at-bat. York's performance raised his average to a team-high .361 although he is three at-bats shy of meeting the NCAA statistical minimum. Alec Keller is the only other Tiger batting above the .300 mark with a .302 average. Bowman and Mike Ford are also batting in the .290s.
Princeton will run out the same first three starters this weekend as it did last weekend in a four-game, two-doubleheader weekend at Navy. Although Princeton went 1-3 in the four games, the Tigers played four winnable games and will look for good starts again this weekend from its starting rotation. Bowman and Zak Hermans will get the ball on Saturday against Brown. Ford will start Sunday's opening game against Yale and the Tigers' Game 2 starter will be determined according to how the first three games play out.
The Tigers will look to get the Ivy season off to a good start as the Gehrig-Rolfe crossover schedule starts with a doubleheader against Brown. Brown has had the upperhand in the series between the two schools in recent years, sweeping Princeton in four of the last five years. Princeton's last win over Brown came in 2008 and Brown picked up wins of 17-4 and 13-12 last season at home.
The Bears are 2-12 overall entering the Ivy opener and recently wrapped a six-game swing in California where they dropped four games at Santa Clara and two at San Jose State. The Bears have played a daunting early season schedule with series at second-ranked Vanderbilt and fifth-ranked Texas. The Bears got a win in Texas and also topped Northeastern in its Northern opener two weeks ago.
The weekend concludes on Sunday afternoon with a twinbill against Yale. The teams have split their last three doubleheaders and five of the last seven. The only two times in that span that weren't splits were Princeton sweeps in 2007 and 2005. Last year Princeton won the opener at Yale 8-7 and fell in the nightcap 7-6.
Yale is currently 10-8 heading into its League opener on Saturday at Cornell. Yale enters the weekend winners of five games in a row after sweeping two doubleheaders from Hartford last weekend and blanking Quinnipiac on Wednesday. Navy is the lone common opponent between Princeton and Yale at this point of the season. Yale split two doubleheaders at Navy while the Tigers went 1-3 in a similar four-game set.
Pitching Matchups (Subject to change)
Saturday Gm 1: RH Matt Bowman (0-3, 3.44 ERA, 18.1 IP) vs. RH Matthew Kimball (0-3, 4.08, 17.2)
Saturday Gm 2: RH Zak Hermans (1-1, 2.82 ERA, 22.1 IP) vs. LH Mark Gormley (0-1, 24.30, 3.1)
Sunday Gm 1: RH Mike Ford (0-3, 9.15 ERA, 19.2 IP) vs. TBA
Sunday Gm 2: TBA vs. TBA