After a grueling 18-game stretch of away games against some of college baseball’s best teams, Princeton baseball (7–15, 3–0 Ivy League) returned home to open Ivy play against the Dartmouth Big Green (0–13, 0–3). Behind electric hitting and elite bullpen performances, the Tigers swept Dartmouth in a roaring start to their Ivy League campaign.
“Every win in Ivy League play is critical, so it was nice to get all three this weekend,” Head Coach Scott Bradley told The Daily Princetonian.
Tigers take back-and-forth opener
On Saturday, the Tigers opened the series with senior starting pitcher Andrew D’Alessio on the mound. After a shaky start to the season, D’Alessio looked to right the ship against Dartmouth. Not a strikeout-heavy pitcher, he worked to limit hard contact and left the game with a quality start and a win.
Early on, both teams traded leads. The Tigers earned the game’s opening run in the third inning through a walk and two infield singles, loading the bases for first-year first baseman Nick Shenefelt. Shenefelt hit a sacrifice fly to right, putting the Tigers ahead 1–0 until Dartmouth tied the score in the top of the fifth.
With the game knotted at 1–1, the Tiger offense came to life in the bottom of the fifth, scoring three runs to make it 4–1. One half-inning later, the defense caved behind D’Alessio, recording a pair of errors and allowing Dartmouth to take a 5–4 lead off of two unearned and two earned runs.
Facing their first deficit of the game, Princeton wasted no time clawing their way back. An RBI single from sophomore designated hitter Jake Kernodle and an RBI double from Shenefelt put the Tigers back in front for good. The Tigers won 8–5, taking the advantage in the series.
Princeton wins double-day doubleheader marathon
The second game started shortly after the first on Saturday but ended an entire day later after going into extra innings, forcing a stoppage due to darkness. After many lead changes and much anticipation, the Tigers came out with a thrilling win thanks to the bat of junior second baseman Jake Koonin.
With 6’7” first-year pitcher James Beasley on the mound, the Tigers wasted no time bringing the run support. After Dartmouth scratched across a run in the first inning, the Tigers added two in the bottom of the inning from RBIs by Kernodle and Shenefelt.
Dartmouth punched back in the third, hitting Beasley for four singles and two runs and bringing the score to 3–2. The Tigers added three more in the bottom of the fifth to pull back, 5–3.
After sophomore pitcher Elliott Eaton threw three scoreless innings in relief of Beasley, he struggled in the seventh inning and the Big Green tied the game. Bradley turned to his best arms out of the bullpen next, bringing in senior relief ace Jacob Faulkner to hold the line.
Faulkner showed as usual, finishing the seventh and taking the Tigers through the eighth and ninth innings without surrendering a run. On the other side, the bats went, cold and the game stayed tied at five heading into extra innings.
As Faulkner continued to pitch into the 11th inning, the game officials turned their eyes skyward. Clarke Field, home to the Tigers, is a daylight-only field, without the lighting necessary for teams to play at night. When darkness began to fall at 6:56 p.m., the game was forced to be delayed until the next day.
“I definitely could’ve and certainly wanted to keep pitching,” Faulkner told the ‘Prince.’ “I was actually out on the mound getting ready for the next inning as the game got delayed, so I was 100 percent geared up for at least one more.”
The next day, both teams took the field in the top of the 12th inning early at 11:30 a.m. Faulkner was replaced by the Tigers’ other relief ace, junior Justin Kim. Kim has been dominant this season, carrying a team-leading 0.73 ERA into Sunday’s game after also pitching in the first game on Saturday.
“If we had a hall of fame, Faulkner and Kim would be first-ballot,” pitching coach Joe Haumacher told the ‘Prince.’ “79 percent of our wins in the last three seasons have had a ‘Faulkner’ or a ‘Kim’ in the box score. Not only do they do a great job, but they’ve made the guys around them better.”
Kim’s first two innings were more of the same, working around just one single and surrendering no runs. Again and again, Kim and Faulkner gave the Tigers the chance to break the tie and walk it off, but they left the bases loaded in the 12th and two runners on in the 13th.
“Justin Kim was the MVP of the weekend," Bradley told the ‘Prince.’ “After a three inning save in game one, he sent us a text on Sunday morning letting us know that he had a few innings left in his arm.” Bradley trusted Kim and was promptly rewarded.
After Kim gave up a rare run in the top of the 14th, Princeton’s bats came to life. Koonin stepped to the plate after two infield singles and an error loaded the bases with no out. On a 1–1 count, the righty stepped into an outside slider and pulled it down the left field line. As the ball rolled into the corner, two runners scored and the jubilant Tigers celebrated.
Tigers take dominant game three
After an exciting second game, the series finale was the opposite. Dartmouth’s pitching staff conceded twelve walks, allowing the Tigers to round the bases in a slow-motion carousel of sorts.
On the pitching side, first-year Liam Kineen turned in the best outing of his young career. Facing the Big Green, Kineen threw seven shutout innings, setting career bests in innings pitched and runs allowed while tying his high of four strikeouts.
“The game plan this weekend was early contact against Dartmouth’s lineup,” Haumacher told the ‘Prince,’ citing the cold weather as a reason for this strategy. “In an environment like this, ramping up pitch counts to avoid contact only means trouble as the pitcher tires out and the fielders lose their spark standing in the cold.”
When the dust settled, the Tigers completed the sweep with an 8–1 victory. Next up for Princeton is a midweek game against Rutgers, followed by a crucial weekend series at home against Columbia, where the Lions will look for revenge after their Ivy League Tournament loss to the Tigers last year.
“This was a great weekend for us,” Bradley told the ‘Prince.’ “We still need the offense to improve, but we put more balls in play and had a number of big two-out hits.”
Joe Uglialoro is an assistant Sports editor for the 'Prince'.
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