Quick Hits: Ivy baseball begins; spikers' upset bid falls short

In ‘Quick Hits,’ we give our immediate thoughts after the biggest games on campus. Today: the men’s volleyball team’s 3-2 loss to No. 8 Penn State.

Baseball: Princeton 8, Dartmouth 0; Dartmouth 8, Princeton 2

-Everyone expects the Tigers’ pitching to be strong, but if they hit the way they did in the first two innings of Saturday, they’ll be unbeatable. After Princeton loaded the bases against Dartmouth ace Kyle Hendricks, junior outfielder John Mishu hit a high fly ball that cleared the fence by a mile but landed a few inches foul; on the next pitch, he kept a line drive fair, sneaking it over the wall for a grand slam. The Tigers followed with three runs on four more hits in the second inning, including an opposite-field homer by junior shortstop Matt Bowman. Princeton only managed three hits in the second game, however.

-Sophomore pitcher and first baseman Mike Ford posted a 1.77 ERA in Ivy League play last year, going 4-0 in five starts; in Saturday’s opener, he picked up right where he left off, throwing a seven-inning shutout against the projected second-best team in the conference. Ford, as usual, mixed up his pitches, striking out only one batter but keeping the Big Green off-balance to get several harmless fly balls.

-Junior starter Zak Hermans did not have his best stuff on Saturday, but he battled through seven tough innings, with a bit of help from his defense, to keep the Tigers within striking range. Princeton’s fielders let him down in the eighth inning, however, committing three throwing errors to prolong the frame and let two runners cross. On his 114th and final pitch of the afternoon, Hermans gave up a two-run homer to Thomas Roulis, plating two more unearned runs and all but deciding the game.

Men's Volleyball: No. 8 Penn State 3, Princeton 2

-3-0, 3-0, 3-0, 3-0, 3-0, 3-0, 3-0, 3-0. Those were the scores of the men’s volleyball team’s last eight games against Penn State, with the Tigers coming out on the short end each time. The traditional power of the East Coast had won 43 straight EIVA matches and had not lost to the Tigers since 1998, but Princeton surprisingly took a 2-1 lead and had not one, not two but eight match points in a wild fourth set. But the Nittany Lions fought off each of those and won the fourth 37-35, then took the fifth 15-12 for a thrilling victory.

-Penn State’s Joe Sunder, a behemoth of an outside hitter, was just too good for the Tigers. Princeton frustrated him into a number of errors in the first three games, often sending three blockers to the strong side and generally playing its best defensive game of the season, but the Nittany Lions constantly set Sunder with the match on the line in the fourth set and the veteran delivered.

-With the Tigers up 33-32 in the fourth set, the Nittany Lions were forced to scramble late in a long point and ended up with a soft attack from the weak side, which went right into two Princeton blockers. Looking right down that sideline, I thought the ball hit the line – which would have given Princeton the victory – but the line judge, on the opposite side of the court, and the main referee, right near the play, ruled the ball out of bounds. Ultimately, the Tigers have only themselves to blame for the loss – they lost two points on out-of-rotation violations earlier in the set, which were ultimately the difference in a game decided 37-35.