Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Softball Set for Saturday's Ivy League Championship Series at Harvard
May 04, 2016 | Softball
Video: Kayla Bose and Shanna Christian talk preparation for the Ivy League Championship Series
A trip to the Ivy League Championship Series at Harvard is up next for the Princeton softball team, with the winner of the best-of-three series that starts Saturday heading to the NCAA tournament.
Saturday's doubleheader will start at 1 p.m., and if the teams split those games, a winner-take-all contest will be played Sunday at 1 p.m. All of the action will be streamed on the Ivy League Digital Network.
This will be Princeton's second time in the Ivy League Championship Series, which began in 2007, and first since 2008, when Princeton swept a twinbill from Harvard at the Class of 1895 Field. All nine ILCS titles have gone to the home team, with the visiting team pushing the series to a third game in four of the nine series and two of the last three.
Princeton enters on a seven-game winning streak after wrapping up the Ivy South division title last Saturday and ending up winning the division by five games over Penn. It was the largest gap between the division winner and runner-up since Harvard won the Ivy North in 2012 by 10 games, and it was the largest margin in the Ivy South since Cornell won by five games in 2010. During the seven-game winning streak, Princeton outscored Columbia and Cornell 52-14.
Harvard won the Ivy North division Tuesday afternoon in the regular season's final game at Dartmouth. The Crimson entered the weekend needing to take at least three of four to wrest the division title away from the Big Green, and that's just what Harvard did. The Crimson swept Dartmouth in the two games at home Saturday, and after the Dartmouth home half of the series was delayed to Tuesday, Harvard fell in the opener but came back to win the nightcap.
This will be Harvard's fifth appearance in the ILCS and first since 2012, when the Crimson beat Penn to advance to the NCAAs.
Along with battling the history of the visiting team in the ILCS, Princeton will be looking to overcome its own history at Harvard, as the last time Princeton won two games in a season at Harvard was 1995.
In this year's regular-season meetings at '95 Field on April 2, Princeton and Harvard split, with the Tigers winning the first game 2-0 and Harvard winning the second game 1-0. Beyond the scores themselves, that the site of the ILCS would be flipped if Princeton had won the second game gives a hint as to how close the series could be this weekend.
Princeton won the first game by pushing across two of the five runners to reach scoring position against Morgan Groom, who enters with a 10-4 record and a 2.30 ERA. Kayla Bose had an RBI single to score Kaitlyn Waslawski in the third and a Haley Hineman groundout picked up Kaylee Grant in the fourth. The Crimson moved seven runners as far as second base, but none of them covered the final 60 feet against starter Claire Klausner (7-5, 4.20 ERA) and reliever Shanna Christian (4-9, 3.63 ERA), who faced one batter and got a double play on a tremendous effort by Hineman to snag a liner off the bat of Harvard's Meagan Lantz and throw to first for the final out.
In game two, Princeton put just three runners into scoring position against Taylor Cabe (14-3, 3.12 ERA), and Cabe completed the shutout. Harvard had just one more runner reach second against starter Ashley La Guardia (9-7, 3.63 ERA) and reliever Riley Wilkinson (1-3, 3.22 ERA) but it was a Maddy Kaplan home run with one out in the fourth that provided the game's only run.
|
Saturday, 1 p.m. (DH) |
 Princeton |
 Harvard |
| 2016 Record | 21-25, 14-6 Ivy | 28-15, 16-4 Ivy |
| Top Hitter (by avg., min 2.5 PA/team gm.) | Kaylee Grant, .347, 43-124 | Maddy Kaplan, .446, 50-112 |
| Team BA | .278 | .315 |
| Top Pitcher (by IP) | Shanna Christian, 4-9, 3.63 ERA, 88 2/3 IP | Morgan Groom, 10-4, 2.30 ERA, 97 1/3 IP |
| Team ERA | 3.70 | 3.57 |
| Home Runs | 27 | 24 |
| Series Notes | Last swept a doubleheader from Harvard in 2008 | Has taken 12 of the last 16 meetings against Princeton |