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Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Baseball Takes Seven-Game Win Streak to New England
April 08, 2011 | Baseball
The Tigers swept doubleheaders from Brown and Yale last weekend and paired with non-league wins at Navy, Seton Hall and Rutgers have the Tigers on a seven-game win streak. Princeton last won seven in a row in the 2009 season and also had seven straight wins in 2006. The last time Princeton won eight in a row was back in the 2003 season and that streak included doubleheader sweeps at Dartmouth and Cornell.
Princeton is 4-0 in league play for only the second time since the current Ivy schedule system begin in the 1993 season. Princeton went 4-0 to start the 2005 season by sweeping Brown and Yale. Princeton dropped its fifth game that season at Dartmouth.
Solid pitching and a lot of hitting have marked Princeton's recent run of success. In the seven-game span, the Tiger bats have more than twice the hits of their opponents and are hitting at a .356 clip, compared to .199 for opponents. Princeton has outscored its opponents by 30 in the span as well. Princeton's .356 average in the last seven games is 86 points above its season average of .270.
Freshman Mike Ford, the current Ivy League Rookie of the Week, leads the Tigers with a .329 average this season is hitting .4333 over the last seven games. He is one of four Tiger regulars batting north of .300 for the season, but nine Tigers are hitting above .300 in the recent streak. Matt Bowman has hit an identical .433 over the seven games and is batting .319 for the season. Bowman's first 29 hits of the season were all singles before he doubled in his final at-bat at Rutgers on Tuesday.
Sam Mulroy has supplied the power for Princeton all season and especially over the last seven games. For the season, he is batting .299 with five doubles, three triples and five home runs. He also has 25 RBIs and 17 runs scored. More recently, he is hitting .375 during the streak with two home runs and 14 of his 25 RBIs have come in the current Tiger streak.
On the mound, the Tigers staff has a 3.60 ERA over the past seven games, which is more than two runs below the season ERA of 5.95 for the staff. Princeton pitchers have held opponents to 43 hits and 27 runs over the last 60 innings.
David Palms has led the Tiger pitching staff during the win streak with 8.2 shutout innings over three appearances, including a win in the second game against Yale. Three of Princeton's weekend starters earned wins last weekend as Bowman, Zak Hermans and Ford were all victorious. Matt Grabowski, A.J. Goetz and Ryan Makis have also been solid, both starting and in relief, during Princeton's current run.
Princeton and Penn both went 4-0 against the Rolfe Division last weekend and are tied atop the Gehrig Division standings. Columbia went 2-2 and Cornell was 1-3. In the Rolfe Division, Dartmouth and Yale are both 2-2, while Brown is 1-3 and Harvard is 0-4.
Princeton begins the weekend with a doubleheader at Harvard. Princeton and Harvard have split their games in three of the last four seasons with Princeton winning twice at home in 2008. Last season Princeton won the opener 4-3 in 12 innings, but fell 4-2 in the nightcap. Harvard is 3-21 overall and 0-4 in the Ivy League after getting swept at Penn and Columbia last weekend. The Crimson have wins this season at Kennesaw State and NYIT (twice). Harvard lost 12-1 at Bryant on Thursday.
The weekend concludes with a doubleheader at Dartmouth on Sunday. The teams split last season while Dartmouth swept two games in each of the two previous seasons. Last year Princeton took the opener 2-0 but lost 5-4 in 10 innings in the second game. Dartmouth is 13-6 overall and 2-2 in the Ivy League after sweeping Columbia and getting swept by Penn last weekend. The Big Green defeated Quinnipiac 16-8 on Wednesday and have won nine of 11 games with the only two losses coming at Penn.