Lions, Tigers to duel it out in weekend competition

While Joe Jones’ departure from Columbia claimed major headlines this past week, the Columbia baseball team was quietly enjoying a comfortable lead atop the Ivy League standings.

After opening conference play two weeks ago, Columbia mustered back-to-back, three-win weekends to improve its record to 6-2 in the Ancient Eight. Last week on the road, the Lions split a pair of games with Dartmouth before finishing off a convincing sweep of Harvard that included a 24-1 thrashing.

So far, Columbia has faced all four opponents from the Rolfe Division but has yet to play any of its divisional adversaries—that is, until this weekend. Commanding a two-game lead in the Gehrig Division, the Lions will be challenged by Princeton in a four-game marathon this weekend at Robertson Field.

The Tigers will not only test Columbia’s bid for the divisional championship—which earns the winner a chance to compete in the Ivy League Championship series—but will also jeopardize the Lions’ dominant 10-1 record at home this season.

Princeton features a mediocre 3-5 record in Ivy League play to go along with an 8-20 mark overall, 12 games below .500. The Tigers opened the conference season by splitting a pair of doubleheaders against Harvard and Dartmouth. Last week, the team was swept by Brown before going one-and-one in its last matchup against Yale, whom Columbia had previously swept.

While the Lions were off this week, Princeton suffered a debilitating 24-7 loss at the hands of Monmouth.

Princeton is a fairly balanced team, as neither its offense nor its defense is something to write home about. The Tigers are hitting .265 on the season, second-to-last in the league, and their team ERA is 8.09, also toward the bottom half of the league.

With that said, the Tigers feature four starters that are batting above the .300 mark, including Sam Mulroy, who has four homers and 19 RBI on the season.

Conversely, the Lions were leading the league in hitting after last weekend’s games, with a team average of .319. Seven Columbia regulars are hitting over .300, and two players, Dean Forthun and Jon Eisen, are nearing the .400 mark.

Dario Pizzano and Alexander Aurrichio are powering the team with seven and eight home runs respectively and 47 RBI combined.

But the real miracle comes from the pitching staff, which lowered its ERA to a respectable 5.85 last weekend after starting the season throwing batting practice. Dan Bracey is leading all starters with a 3.82 ERA, and Derek Squires has been superb out of the bullpen, allowing just two earned runs in 10 innings of work.

While the Lions are playing sound baseball, in a sense, the real season begins this weekend. Columbia is in direct competition with the three other members of the Gehrig Division—Penn, Princeton, and Cornell—to earn a bid to the Ivy League Championship.

This weekend’s games with Princeton will mark the figurative halfway point in the season. With a strong showing, the Lions could distance themselves from the competition and build an almost insurmountable lead, but with a mediocre weekend, Columbia could find itself in a high-pressure dogfight when it travels to Cornell next weekend and concludes the season against Penn at the end of the month.

The Lions host Princeton beginning at noon on both Saturday and Sunday at Robertson Field.