Princeton University Athletics
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Hofstra to Visit Softball for Single Game Tuesday
April 11, 2011 | Softball
PRINCETON -- Hofstra will make its first visit to the Class of 1895 Field since 1999 when the Pride come to town for a 4 p.m. single game against the Princeton softball team.
It is also the second-to-last non-league date of the regular season for the Tigers, who will return to Ivy League play at Penn this weekend before hosting Monmouth in a doubleheader Wednesday, April 20.
Hofstra leads the all-time series 16-10, but 25 of those 26 meetings came between the series' first game in 1992 and 2001, the last game before the teams renewed the series last season. The Pride won last year's game 6-2 in Hempstead, N.Y., with Liza Kuhn going six innings in the circle for Princeton and five Tigers splitting the team's five hits.
Hofstra enters the game at 25-9 overall after seeing a 16-game winning streak snapped Sunday against conference foe George Mason. The Pride have four regulars above .300 at the plate, led by sophomore D.J. Slugh at .364. Hofstra is especially strong in the circle, with a staff ERA of 1.75 led by sophomore Olivia Galati's 1.42 ERA and 16-6 record. Galati has thrown 63% of the team's innings, while junior Erin Wade has thrown all but one of the remaining innings and has a 2.26 ERA and 9-3 record.
Lizzy Pierce leads Princeton at the plate with her .368 average, while sophomore Alex Peyton and junior Kelsey VandeBergh co-lead the team with four home runs apiece. Peyton also has the lowest ERA among Princeton's three pitchers at 3.53, while sophomore Liza Kuhn leads the staff in wins, with six, and senior Michelle Tolfa is the innings leader at 61.
The Tigers are part of a wide-open Ivy League race as the conference schedule crosses the midway point this weekend. Princeton is 4-4, having split all four of its doubleheaders against the Ivy North teams over the past two weekends. Cornell leads the Ivy South at 5-3, while Harvard, at 6-2, leads the Ivy North over Yale and Brown, each at 5-3.