Back-to-Back Ivy Champion Softball Team Announces 2018 Schedule

2018 Softball Schedule

A new Ivy League scheduling format will greet the two-time defending Ivy champion Princeton softball team when the 2018 season begins.

Since 2007, the eight Ivy teams were split into two divisions, with four games apiece against the other three teams in the same division and a doubleheader each against teams in the other division. The two division winners would then compete in the Ivy League Championship Series, hosted by the division winner with the better record.

For 2018, the divisions are gone, and teams will play one more conference game in total, but the ILCS is still around. Princeton will play every other Ivy team three times each, with a doubleheader one day, usually Saturday, and a single game on the other day, usually Sunday. The top two teams in the Ivy after that 21-game slate will meet in the ILCS on the first weekend of May at the home of the first-place team for the Ivy League title and the automatic NCAA berth.

It'll be the first time since 2006, the last year of a 14-game format in which each team played a doubleheader against every other team, that the league has a balanced schedule.

With seven league weekends instead of five, the league season will start a week earlier and end a week later. Princeton will open the Ivy slate hosting Brown March 24-25 and end hosting Cornell May 5-6. In between, the Tigers will have Harvard, Yale and Columbia on the road and Dartmouth and Penn at home.

Before the Ivy schedule gets underway, the Tigers will open the season in Arizona at a weekend event March 2-4 hosted by Grand Canyon before heading back East for a tournament the following weekend at George Washington. Princeton will spend its spring break week in Florida, starting with a tournament hosted by South Florida with doubleheaders at Stetson and Central Florida in the week following before Ivy play begins.

In pursuit of their third straight Ivy title, which would be a first since 1994-96, Princeton will return eight of the 10 non-pitchers who started at least 25 games last year, including reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Year shortstop Allison Harvey as well as sophomore first-team All-Ivy outfielder Megan Donahey, second-team All-Ivy catcher Keeley Walsh and honorable mention first baseman Kaylee Grant. In the circle, Princeton returns two of the four pitchers who threw at least 40 innings last year in junior Riley Wilkinson and Ashley LaGuardia.

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