Tigers muster six hits in finale for four seniors
By: Justin Feil
By Justin Feil<>&& Staff Writer<>&& <>&& It was not the way the Princeton University baseball team would have picked for its season to end, but the players left Cougar Field on Saturday knowing they never gave up.<>&& The Tigers scored their only run of the game against Texas Tech with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning but couldn’t maintain the rally. It was a five-run sixth inning followed by a three-run seventh that sealed Princeton’s fate in its 10-1 loss to the Raiders, who improved to 36-25. The loss was the 24-20 Tigers second in as many days and eliminated them from the NCAA tournament.<>&& “First of all, it has been a great year and a great experience for our kids just to be out here,” PU head coach Scott Bradley said. “The regional has been a lot of fun and a great atmosphere in that it is something that we don’t have the opportunity to do very often – to play in this type of venue.”<>&& Texas Tech, the third seed, advanced to the 8 p.m. game Saturday where it will face the winner of the 4 p.m. game between top-seeded Houston and second-seeded Rice. <>&& Princeton, which just 16 hours before had put a scare in the host Cougars with four runs in the first two innings to take an early lead, never did get its offense on track against Texas Tech and starter Cory Metzler.<>&& After Jon Watterson started off the bottom of the first inning with a single it would take until the sixth inning, until the Tigers’ designated hitter made his third appearance at the plate, for Princeton to get another hit. The Ivy League champions had just six hits off Metzler. Watterson had two of them and two more came in the final inning.<>&& In the bottom of the ninth, after two quick outs, catcher Casey Hildreth drove a pitch deep to center field for a double. The next batter, PU center fielder Mickey Martin got his second hit of the game to score Hildreth and drive in the Tigers’ only run of the day.<>&& Texas Tech, however, wasn’t so kind to Princeton’s pitching staff. The Tigers, on the mound and in the field, paid for the slightest mistakes. In the third inning, Scott Holzhauer hit a fly that PU left fielder Ryan Achterberg misjudged as it fell for a double. Two runs scored on the hit. Behind Metzler, a 6-foot-1 right hander who entered the game with a 6.44 earned run average and 4-2 record, Texas Tech would not need any more runs, but they got them anyway.<>&& Holzhauer’s two-run double was the only serious trouble Princeton starting pitcher Jason Quintana would run into until the sixth inning started. The Tigers’ right hander, a co-captain, never got an out though as Texas Tech’s first five batters scored, the last three on a booming home run from Shaun Larkin, before Tom Rowland relieved Quintana to get Princeton out of the inning.<>&& “I think the biggest difference between the first and second times I went through their lineup was that as the game went on, my pitches satred to come up,” Quintana said. “That was the only difference. My stuff was there through the first four innings. When the fifth inning came around, I was starting to feel it a little bit, and they made me pay for it.<>&& “The weather was a little bit more than I thought I was going to be. Usually, I like to pitch in hot and humid weather. I ran into a wall out there. I am not blaming the weather for my performance. I made a couple mistakes and they made me pay for them.”<>&& In the seventh inning, the Raiders put the Tigers in a deeper hole with another three-run home run, this one by Cory Sellars who took advantage of an eight mile per hour wind blowing out after Rowland first walked, then hit a batter to put two runners aboard.<>&& Freshman Ryan Quillian came in in the eighth inning and faced the minimum number of batters to finish the game for Princeton. Texas Tech’s Metzler went the distance surrendering just the run batted in to Martin while walking two and striking out a pair of Tigers.<>&& Princeton loses just four seniors to graduation from this year’s team – Quintana, pitcher Jay Tedeman, and co-captain and catcher Buster Small along with second baseman Jay Mitchell, both who played in the NCAA opener against Houston. They leave with the Ivy championship, won this year for the first time since 1996.<>&& “Every year, we look to the Ivy League championship as a goal,” Bradley said. “Getting to play here and in an environment like this is something of a bonus. We had a great season and have four seniors who will move on after this and we’ll come back and maybe make it to Sunday at this tournament next year.” <>&&