Baseball team wins two before falling to Trenton
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
What started out as a good week and had a chance to be a great week, turned out to be just an OK week for the Princeton High baseball team.
The Little Tigers opened the week with wins over Hightstown and Princeton Day School, then jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning against Trenton on Wednesday. But they let that lead slip away, falling 6-5 to the Tornadoes and putting a damper on their week.
”The unfortunate thing is that we did jump out on them early and then kind of shut it down after that,” Princeton coach Dave Roberts said after the loss to Trenton. “We probably played the worst defensive game we played all year. It was a bad time to give our worst defensive performance. Our base running had been stellar, but we had some bad jumps today and got picked off.”
Roberts and his team were feeling good after a 3-1 win over Hightstown and 13-3 win over PDS moved them to within a game if .500. But Trenton rallied from down 4-0 to tie the game, 4-4 in the sixth. Then, after Princeton had taken a 5-4 lead in the bottom of the sixth, Trenton scored twice in the seventh to pull out the win.
”I think we learned that we just can’t come out and expect to beat people,” Roberts said. “We need to do everything we’re supposed to do to be able to win. It puts a damper on the week. This was a game we thought we could win. You come out and think you have a shot to win, but we didn’t capitalize.
”In terms of a good week or bad week, right now it’s not a good week.”
Matt Hoffman was 4-for-4 for the Little Tigers on Wednesday, including scoring the go-ahead run in the sixth on a hit by Alex Mitko. A day earlier, Nico Mercuro and Will Greenberg each had three hits to back the pitching of Rohit Chawla in a win over PDS. On Monday, Mike Dunlap and Ellis Bloom combined on a six-hitter against Hightstown.
”The progress has been there,” Roberts said. “We’ve been getting better and better each day. Today was a huge step back. We played a great game (against PDS). We did to PDS what Trenton did to us. We took advantage of every mistake and every opportunity PDS gave us. Trenton did that to us today.”
The Little Tigers are back in action today against Robbinsville as they look to put the loss behind them.