Princeton U. baseball drops NCAA opener on ninth-inning home run
By: Justin Feil
Maybe too much had been made of the 20-day layoff that Princeton University’s baseball team endured between winning the Ivy League Championship series May 6 and opening the NCAA tournament Friday in Houston against the No. 1 regionally seeded Cougars.
Maybe Houston thought they were too good for the Ivy champs. For most of the game, they looked up at a their home scoreboard at Cougar Field only to see themselves trailing.
The Tigers battled for nine innings with the No. 9 team in the nation, but in the end it wasn’t rust that did them in. It was a two-out, ninth-inning home run off the aluminum bat of J.P. Woodward that handed Houston a 7-6 win in front of 4,335 partisan Cougar fans.
Princeton, which dropped to 24-19 overall, will play noon Saturday against the regional’s third seed Texas Tech, a 5-2 loser in the day’s first game to No. 2 seed Rice.
The game went as Princeton had hoped for six and half innings. They got off to a strong start and knocked Houston ace pitcher Kyle Crowell out of the game before the end of the second inning. But in the bottom of the sixth inning, the Tigers and starting pitcher Chris Young seemed to run out of gas with PU ahead, 6-2.
From the outset, however, it was clear that Princeton was serious about its chances to upset the No. 5 national seed.
Jon Watterson led off the game, on the very first pitch, with a line drive that Houston’s right fielder Eric Lee misplayed into what was scored a triple. The very next batter, Pat Boran, swatted a two-strike pitch into center field to plate the Tigers’ first run of the game.
Princeton wasn’t done there. After a perfect start by Young, the Tigers gave him three more runs in the top of the second inning to chase starter Crowell, who entered the game with a gaudy 12-3 record. For the second inning in a row, Princeton got its lead-off on when Buster Small lined a double into left field. After two quick outs, left fielder Ryan Achterberg walked before Tiger second basemen Jay Mitchell drove in the catcher with a single to center that was mishandled. Watterson found another hole for a single that scored Achterberg and Boran followed with yet another single to drive in Mitchell, send Crowell to an early shower and give the Tigers a 4-0 lead.
Meanwhile, Young appeared to be in control of the Houston bats. Despite several deep drives that were caught and just a lone strikeout, the Tiger sophomore took a no-hitter into the fifth inning before surrendering a double to Kris Wilkens that Achterberg looked like he had a bead on before losing.
Houston did not get on the scoreboard until the bottom of the sixth inning when a double drove in a pair of runs to cut Princeton’s lead to 4-2. The Tigers reopened a four-run cushion when they manufactured a couple runs.
Achterberg drew a lead-off walk and moved up to second on a sacrifice bunt by Mitchell. After Watterson walked, Boran drove Achterberg home with a single. First baseman Andrew Hanson followed with his only hit of the game, a single to center that allowed Watterson to score.
But in the bottom of the inning, Young and Princeton ran smack into trouble. The right hander from Dallas, about a three-hour drive from Houston, struggled at times with his control walking five and it cost him. After a lead-off single started the bottom of the seventh, Young walked back-to-back hitters to load the bases with no outs. A single to center scored two runs, and then Young could not stop a bunt base hit from the next batter that reloaded the bases.
On the next play, Houston batter Jarrod Bitter lofted a high pop fly into very shallow left field. Boran, PU’s shorstop, ranged out to make the play, but dropped the ball. Though PU head coach Scott Bradley argued for the infield fly rule, the Tigers got only the runner advancing to third base while another run scored and Bitter stood safe at first.
"Our kids did a good job being in an environment we are not used to," said Bradley who noted that the dynamics of the game changed with the non-call. "Coming out, I thought that we played very well early on. We came out, took good swings and had good at bats. Chris was in a real good rhythm. Then, as the game went on, we had chances to get even bigger leads and couldn’t come up with the big hit. When you sit back and look at it, we didn’t get a whole lot of breaks today. I thought we played extremely well."
The third-year coach, in his and the team’s first NCAA tournament appearance, went to the bullpen for closer David Boehle, who came in to get the final two outs of the inning with the Tigers clinging to a 6-5 lead. Houston tied the game, 6-6, the next inning when they pieced together a single, sacrifice bunt and a two-out single.
After Princeton went down 1-2-3 in the top of the ninth, Boehle, in a rare third inning of work for the freshman reliever, got two quick outs before Houston’s first baseman Woodward stepped to the plate and belted the game-winning home run. It was his only hit of the day after flying out to the warning track several times into a strong wind.
For Princeton, the top of the order put up impressive numbers. Watterson was 2-for-4 with two runs while Boran was 3-for-5 with two runs batted in out of the second slot. Small also collected two hits while Achterberg scored twice.
Young, after pitching 6.1 innings and giving up six hits and five earned runs, got a no decision. Boehle fell to 3-3 this year with the loss.
"I have always said that good baseball teams know how to forget," Bradley said. "We have to put this one behind us and come out and play for our baseball lives tomorrow."