Diamond Updates

TigerBlog was walking towards the field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium for Princeton's men's lacrosse practice Saturday when the entire Columbia baseball team came walking towards him.

The team was coming from practice on its home field, which is adjacent to the football stadium. As they walked by, TB asked if they were off for the weekend, and they said that they were.

"Why?" TB said. "The weather's too good?"

They laughed. By the way, the staff at Columbia deserves some kudos for the job of hosting the men's lacrosse tournament, especially considering that the school does not field a team in the sport. 

As for the baseball team, all they had was practice this weekend. Up next for Columbia will be three games this weekend at Penn, as the Ivy baseball regular season wraps up ahead of the first league tournament.

There are three teams who are definitely in: Princeton, Harvard and Penn. There are two teams who could still get the last spot: Columbia and Yale, who plays three at Harvard this weekend.

Princeton is in the clubhouse at 13-8 in the league, which is a 10-game improvement over last year's 3-18 finish. That alone should get Scott Bradley some votes for Coach of the Year.

Princeton also has demolished the school records for home runs. The Tigers have blasted 58 of them, the most ever by a Princeton team, and Kyle Vinci took care of the Ivy League record with his 20th this past Saturday against Brown.

Vinci, in fact, ranks 11th in Division I total home runs and third in Division I in home runs per game, at 0.49. The nation's leader in Florida's Jac Caglianone at 0.55 per game, followed by Troy's Shane Lewish at 0.53. Perhaps you remember Caglianone for his non-celebration of one of his homers after Florida had a pitcher ejected for celebrating a strikeout.

Meanwhile, back in the Ivy League, Harvard holds the tiebreaker over Penn to be the top seed and host for the tournament in two weekends should the teams have the same results this weekend. Should they both get swept, there would be a three-way tie for the championship with those two and Princeton, but Harvard would again hold the tiebreaker.

Meanwhile Columbia has a two-game lead on Yale. Should they end up tied, the tiebreaker belongs to Columbia, who swept Yale, which means the only way Columbia doesn't get the fourth slot would be if it got swept by Penn and Yale swept Harvard. 

As for the softball side, before Princeton had its practice Thursday before the first game of the men's lacrosse tournament, a bus pulled up inside the gate at the Baker Field complex as a few students waited to get on board. Columbia's outdoor athletic facilities are about 100 blocks north of the main campus, up at 218th and Broadway. The buses run back and forth every 20 minutes as the athletes make their way from classes up to practices.

What do you do on the bus for 20 minutes each way, they were asked? There were two answers: sleep, and study. That pretty much covers it.

The athletes who were waiting for the bus while Princeton was getting ready were softball players. They'll be at Princeton this week for the first Ivy tournament. 

The Tigers are the top seed after sharing the regular season title with Harvard but taking two of three from the Crimson. The tournament is a double elimination format, beginning Thursday with those same bus traveling Lions against Princeton at noon, followed by Harvard and Yale at 2:30. 

The two first-round losing teams play each other Friday, followed by the game between the winners. The team that loses the first game is eliminated, and the team that wins plays the team that loses the second game. The loser of that game is also eliminated, leaving two teams, one of whom is unbeaten. Does that make sense?

Those three games are Friday. Then, Saturday, the two remaining teams play, and if the unbeaten team wins the first game, it is the champion. If it doesn't, then there is one more game for the championship.

The winner of the tournament gets the Ivy League's automatic NCAA tournament bid.

It's something new for Ivy League athletics, which is always fun. It's followed by the same format next weekend for the baseball tournament.