Baseball looks to pay back Harvard

The time for lineup tune-ups and rotation roulette has passed. Now, the "preseason" is over.

"This is what we gear up for," head coach Scott Bradley said. "What I call preseason is now over and what type of season we have is based on the next five weekends."

The baseball team's Ivy League season begins with a bang this weekend with doubleheaders against a pair of Rolfe Division foes — Dartmouth (7-8) and three-time defending Ivy champion Harvard.

The team will then finish its Rolfe division swing with doubleheaders at Yale (8-14) and Brown (6-10) the following weekend before the schedule turns to Princeton's own Gehrig division.

"[Dartmouth and Harvard are] big opponents in that they're probably going to be two of the better teams in the league, but they're not in our division," Bradley said. "These first two weekends, you just don't want to allow yourself to get in a hole."

Last season, Princeton finished 15-5 in league play, nine games ahead of second-place Columbia in the Tigers' division. With strong additions to an already solid pitching staff, the Tigers seem poised to defend their title.

The focus, then, inevitably turns to Harvard (4-8), which has defeated Princeton in the Ivy championship series three years in a row.

The Crimson has lost the 1999 Ivy Player of the Year, center fielder Andrew Huling, but returns Pitcher of the Year junior John Birtwell and co-Rookie of the Year sophomore pitcher Ben Crockett.

Birtwell and Crockett were especially tough on Ivy league foes last year. Birtwell was 4-1 with a 1.91 ERA. He also had a league-leading 42 strikeouts in 33 innings pitched. Crockett went 4-0 with a 3.69 ERA.

Offense probably won't be a problem for Harvard either. The Crimson has five returning starters who hit better than .300 last year.

Challenger

Harvard's path to a division title will not be an easy one, however. After a breakout season last year, Brown will challenge the Crimson for the Rolfe Division crown.

"I think [Brown] could be the best team in the league," Bradley said. "They were very good last year, and they've added some good recruits and some transfer students so I think they're the team we really have to sit back and take a look at."

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Brown had its most successful season ever last year. The team tied the school record for victories in a season with 23, and the Bears' media guide for 2000 will include six new single-season records.

Despite a sub.500 record against a tough non-conference schedule, the Tigers (6-9) seem ready for the Ivy season.

"We've been swinging the bats well," Bradley said. "And not just [Max] Krance and [Andrew] Hanson — everyone has been playing well."

Offensive production was a concern for the Tigers this season. But Hanson is hitting .321 with 8 RBI. He and sophomore Pat Boran have each hit safely in all but three games so far this season.

With the offense rolling early in the season, the pitching staff seemed to be the only cause for concern as the Tigers experimented with different starters.

"If someone looked at our pitching staff, they might think we're struggling," Bradley said. "But it was early in the year, plus we were playing good teams like Virginia Commonwealth and Rutgers. Now we're back in the league, and guys have picked up their command. I think we're ready to go."

As the team got closer to the Ivy season, the staff did seem to regain control. Tom Rowland threw a shutout in his last appearance, senior Jason Quintana had a solid performance in windy conditions last weekend against Delaware, and sophomore Chris Young — last year's co-Rookie of the Year — is back in the rotation after finishing the basketball season.

The bullpen, another early area of concern, has been taken care of by freshman David Boehle, who has notched four saves and a victory in six appearances.