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Seniors Key Weekend Success For Baseball

Carey's four-bagger set the stage for senior center fielder Andrew Huling to double two batters later. He went two-for-three and reached base four times in the first game, scoring twice. He went two-for-five and scored a run in game three.

On the mound, Coach Joe Walsh turned to the Class of 1999 for the final five outs of the series. Righthander Andrew Duffell got the biggest victory of the season and senior Garett Vail came in for the last two outs to earn his third save of the season.

Those two outs were even more impressive considering that Vail had started the first game the day before. He went five-plus innings, allowing three earned runs while recording eight strikeouts against one walk.

"All of [the pitchers] who went Saturday told Coach that we were ready to go, so I wasn't surprised when I got put into the game," Vail said. "In a game like this, you worry about your arm later; the team comes first. The adrenaline was enough to get through it. Coming in I knew I would only throw a few pitches, so they had to be good ones."

Senior righthander Donny Jamieson relieved Vail in the first game. He turned in 3.1 innings, six strikeouts and one walk.

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Confrontations of Frustration

Although it only lost two games this weekend, Princeton lost three different coaches to ejection. All three came at the hands of umpire Rick Santilli in the bottom of the ninth inning in the Tigers' losses in the first and third game.

Head Coach Scott Bradley got the thumb in the third game when Santilli was the plate umpire. He asked Santilli not to talk to his players, who were complaining about balls and strikes, and Bradley was tossed after demonstrating his dissatisfaction with Santilli's explanation.

The other two ejections came after the most important, and most surprising, defensive play of the series--when Walsh called for junior first baseman Erik Binkowski to charge home plate with the pitch as Woodfork wheeled from second to first base. Sophomore catcher Scot Hopps received the pitch and rifled the ball to Woodfork at first, where freshman left fielder Ryan Achterberg--who represented the tying run--was desperately sliding into the base. Santilli called him out.

Princeton third base coach Tom Crowley charged across the diamond to question the call--which killed any chance a Tiger rally even though it was only the first out of the inning. Santilli ejected him. Bradley came out for a second conversation in as many days, but as he was walking back to the dugout, Santilli tossed Tiger first base coach Mark Gola.

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