Baseball: Underclassmen lead postseason victories

Princeton’s juniors and seniors combined to make just six of a possible 27 starts in the field and record exactly one out on the mound. Yet the underclassmen played beyond their years and dominated the Big Green, racking up 39 hits against the two-time defending champions and outscoring them 21-12.

The Tigers’ inexperience was perhaps best personified by freshman reliever A.J. Goetz. A long reliever buried behind more experienced options at first, the righty did not even appear in an Ivy League game until more than halfway through the conference season. Yet on Sunday, after Dartmouth’s back-to-back homers off sophomore righty Kevin Link cut the Tigers’ lead to one run in the most important game Princeton had played in five years, head coach Scott Bradley turned to Goetz, and his faith was rewarded.

Goetz retired the first eight batters he faced, striking out two in the sixth inning with tight, late-breaking curveballs. Though Dartmouth first baseman Jason Brooks hit his second home run of the game in the eighth inning, Goetz did not allow another run, getting six more outs, including Brooks again, to end the game.

The rookie, who had not thrown more than two innings in an outing in more than a month, went 4.2 innings and earned the win.

Bradley said that he knew Goetz could handle a deep outing. “You watch how much he throws in his side workouts, and it doesn’t surprise me one bit,” he said. “He has an unbelievable amount of composure and focus in every aspect of everything that he does.”

Princeton took the lead with four runs in the first three innings, largely thanks to the bat of sophomore designated hitter Steve Harrington. Though Dartmouth lefty Mitch Horacek fooled Princeton’s other left-handed batters, striking out two in the first inning, Harrington doubled in both of his at-bats and drove in three runs.

“I was just letting my hands do the work,” Harrington said. “I got a pitch to hit, put the barrelhead on it and drove some runs in.”

The third game would not have been necessary if not for the final three innings of the second game, which were as fascinating from a tactical standpoint as they were disappointing to Princeton fans, featuring many thought-provoking decisions in a wild finish.

Sophomore right-handed pitcher Zak Hermans had been extremely effective in his first six innings, allowing just one base runner and two well-hit balls, but by the time shortstop Joe Sclafani doubled with two outs in the eighth inning, the Big Green had racked up four hits in its previous six at-bats. With his pitch count in the triple digits and the heart of the order due up for the fourth time, Bradley was forced to turn to his bullpen.

With left-handed designated hitter Sam Bean batting, Bradley turned to senior captain and lefty David Palms to take the platoon advantage. Palms pitched well enough to retire Bean, getting ahead 1-2 with three good breaking balls and following with another offspeed pitch on the outside corner, but the lefty flicked his bat and looped a line drive to the opposite field, bringing home the Big Green’s third run.

Bradley then committed one of the proverbial cardinal sins of baseball, issuing an intentional walk to Dartmouth catcher Chris O’Dowd — one of the league’s best batters but not one who has compiled markedly better statistics than those of several of Dartmouth’s other hitters. Brooks hit a clean double down the left-field line on senior right-handed reliever Matt Grabowski’s first pitch, bringing home the tying and go-ahead runs.

“That’s baseball,” Mulroy said after the second game. “You watch or play enough baseball, that’ll happen, a team will lose a game late. So what?”

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Lost in the late-game drama was a phenomenal pitching performance by Hermans, who retired 19 of the first 20 batters he faced before an error by freshman left fielder Alec Keller led to a pair of unearned runs in the seventh inning. Aside from a hard line drive right at freshman third baseman Jonathan York in the third inning, the Big Green made solid contact with very few of Hermans’ offerings. The sophomore kept Dartmouth’s potent lineup off-balance, getting strikeouts with low changeups, curveballs in the dirt and fastballs on the corners.

“I felt like I was hitting my spots well today, mixing up pitches, which was the goal coming into the game, and just trying to make them put the ball in play,” Hermans said. “I wish I’d been able to finish the eighth inning, but I just kind of ran out of gas there.”

Hermans was not the only starter to give Princeton strong pitching on Saturday, as freshman Mike Ford opened the afternoon by allowing only two runs in eight innings of his own. Ford has demonstrated very advanced secondary pitches for a rookie this season but dominated the Big Green mostly with his fastball, getting six of his seven strikeouts with heat.

“It’s what we expect from him now — he’s going to attack hitters, change speeds and hit his spots,” said Mulroy, who was behind the plate for Ford’s start. “He threw his game and it worked out really well. We were glad to get game one.”

In early March, after seeing the young talent on his team, Palms guaranteed that Princeton would win the Ivy League title — a bold proclamation, given that the Tigers finished last in the division at 6-14 one year ago.

Palms said his teammates gave him some grief about his prediction, but he could now “shove it right back to them.”

“This is the best feeling of my career,” he said. “We’re not stopping here; we’re ready for regionals. We’re not going there to lose.”