Looking to get back into the Gehrig Division, the Princeton University baseball team started its four-game set against Columbia last weekend with a bang.

Rallying from a 3-2 deficit in the bottom of the seventh inning in game one on Saturday, Princeton pulled out a 4-3 victory with the winning run coming on clutch single by senior Mat DeNunzio.

“It was a great win, we are at the point where we are going to celebrate every chance we have to get a win,” said Princeton head coach Scott Bradley.

“For Mat DeNunzio, who is one of the best kids that I think we have ever had in the program, to get a game winning hit at home, you couldn’t be more happy for somebody like that.”

There was not much for Princeton to celebrate the rest of the weekend, though, as they fell 10-4 in the nightcap on Saturday and then got swept 4-0 and 9-1 on Sunday to drop to 6-24 overall and 3-9 Ivy League.

In reflecting on Sunday’s losses, Bradley pointed out that injuries have hurt his squad.

“It has been a strange year, we have never had a year where we have been just so banged up,” lamented Bradley.

“Danny Hoy couldn’t play today. Danny Baer hasn’t played the last six games with injuries. We have just had so many people banged up. When you take your starting center fielder and your starting second baseman your two/three hole
hitter, it is tough. I think the other guys have put some pressure on themselves. In the Ivy League, it is hard with lineups. If you take key guys out of the lineup, it is not like we are Texas A & M or one of those powers where you are nine players deep in the lineup. You just have to try your best.”

Bradley acknowledged that the Tigers haven’t showed enough power at the plate.

“It has just been all year long with our guys,” said Bradley, whose squad managed a run and 12 hits in 16 innings of action on Sunday and now has a team batting average of .256.

“It is a couple of years in a row where our pitching has been good enough but we have really struggled generating any type of offense from top to bottom. We look really good in batting practice, guys that need to be able to take their practice swings out onto the field with them and we just haven’t been able to.”

With Princeton effectively eliminated from the Gehrig race as Penn and Columbia both stand at 10-2 in league play and still have four games against each other, Bradley is looking for his Class of 2015 to make the most of the last few weeks of their college careers.

“We have some seniors who have been around for a while, they have a couple of weeks left to wear a baseball uniform,” said Bradley, whose club plays at St. John’s on April 15 before heading to Philadelphia this weekend for doubleheaders at Penn on April 18 and 19.

“We are going to come out and we are going to run, we are going to have fun. We are going to celebrate every win that we get. We are going to go down to Penn and try to throw a monkey wrench into what’s going on.”

Bradley is hoping that some of his younger players will make an impression over the homestretch.

“And for the young guys, they are playing for future opportunities,” said Bradley.

“We are very thin this year, we have a small roster. We have what we think is a good and a larger recruiting class. Those  guys were told that there is going to be a lot more competition. We have got a lot of guys who know that they are going to play every day, they know that they are going to be out there on a regular basis. We  are bringing in a lot of bodies and some athletes, I think, so there is  going to be competition; hopefully that is going to raise everybody’s game.”