Princeton University
PRINCETON – Ahead of the Ivy League Tournament, the Princeton Baseball Team had four named to All-Ivy, the league announced today.
Jacob Faulkner proved to be one of the best pitchers in the Ivy League, collecting unanimous First-Team honors by doing a little bit of everything. The junior has earned seven victories, four saves and sports a 3.16 ERA in 19 appearances, striking out 49 in 57 innings.
The junior has thrown multiple innings in all but one of his outings and has nine scoreless appearances. His signature moment of the season was earning the save vs. Penn on Apr. 20 and coming back the next day to start the series finale and throwing six shutout innings. Faulkner has seen action in more than half of the team’s Ivy games (12) and has a 2.89 ERA with six wins and two saves.
Nick DiPietrantonio was chosen as First-Team All-Ivy as a utility player, contributing a .291 average with six home runs and 23 RBI. Sitting with a .196 average on Mar. 13, the senior infielder went on a 12-game hitting streak before an 0-for-4 performance against Rider. He followed that a few days later with eight hits in the Penn series, producing six RBI as the Tigers won two of three.
The senior was the team’s best hitter in Ivy League playing, hitting .358 while also adding a .519 slugging percentage.
Jake Koonin has been brilliant for Princeton, earning Second-Team All-Ivy honors. He leads the team in hitting (.329), RBI (40), slugging (.537), doubles (19), total bases (80), and stolen bases (11). He is currently on a 17-game hitting streak which is tied for the second longest recorded streak in program history. He has posted hits in 35 of the team’s 41 games and 11 multi-hit performances including a current stretch of five of the last seven games for the Tigers.
Caden Shapiro was picked as Academic All-Ivy, corralling a .281 average with four home runs, 22 RBI and 28 runs. Shapiro was steady as they come as his average never dipped below .260 after Mar. 1. He has hits in eight of the last nine games and is currently on a 10-game on-base streak. The junior outfielder also leads the team with 13 multi-hit performances.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
•The Princeton Baseball Team began the 2024 season at UNC Wilmington, dropping two of three to the Seahawks. The Tigers then headed to North Carolina, falling in three straight contests.
•Princeton’s annual Spring Break trip saw battles vs. Navy, Richmond, Old Dominion and VCU. The Tigers beat Old Dominion on Mar. 12, 10-8, marking the first victory over ODU since 2005.
•Caden Shapiro’s walk-off walk began Ivy action with a 4-3 victory over the Cornell Big Red. A few hours later, Jordan Kelly’s RBI knock gave Princeton another 4-3 victory to begin the Ivy season 2-0.
•After dropping three of four Ivy contests, Princeton rebounded with taking two of three from Brown on the road.
•Following a loss to Monmouth, the Tigers went 1-2 against the Harvard Crimson and suffered a defeat to Rider before taking two of three from the Penn Quakers at Clarke Field.
•In the final game of the season at Clarke Field, the Tigers won a wild contest over the Wagner Seahawks. Trailing by two, the home team produced six runs in the bottom of the second and held Wagner without a hit until the seventh inning. The Seahawks tied the game in the sixth before Nick DiPietrantonio’s two-run home run in the bottom of the frame proved to be the difference.
•Princeton swept Dartmouth on the road for the first time since the 2004 Ivy League Championship Series. It also marked the first time that the Tigers swept Dartmouth in back-to-back years since 2002-03. In the series, Kyle Vinci broke the program record for career home runs with his 27th.
•Head coach Scott Bradley‘s crew lost to Rutgers and dropped two of three to Columbia to end the regular season, but clinched the No. 2 seed in the Ivy Tournament following a Dartmouth win over Penn on May 3rd.
News and Notes:
•This is the second Ivy League Tournament for baseball with Princeton, Columbia and Penn being the only schools to make both tournaments.
•Last year, the Tigers began the tournament with a 3-2 loss to Harvard. They rebounded with elimination wins over Columbia over Harvard before falling to Penn in the championship game.
•Last year, the Tigers began the tournament with a 3-2 loss to Harvard. They rebounded with elimination wins over Columbia and Harvard before falling to Penn in the championship game.
•Princeton last reached the NCAA Tournament in 2016, winning the Ivy League Championship Series over Yale.
•The Tigers currently have two former alumni in the Big Leagues in Mike Ford with the Cincinati Reds and Matt Bowman with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
•Bowman has a 2.38 ERA in seven games this season while Ford has three RBI in 24 at bats with the Reds. Scott Bandura is in the San Francisco Giants organization after being selected in the seventh round of 2023 MLB draft. In two seasons, he’s produced a .738 OPS in 53 games.
•Will Venable ’05 (associate manager) and Chris Young ’02 (general manager) helped the Texas Rangers win the 2023 World Series. The Rangers took down the Arizona Diamondbacks four games to one in the best-of-seven Fall Classic. Mike Hazen ’98 is the general manager of the Diamondbacks.
•During his Princeton career, Young pitched to the lowest ERA in the conference in consecutive years (1999, 2000). He also Ivy Rookie of the Year and first-team All-Ivy as a sophomore in basketball.
•Venable came to Princeton as a basketball player, and his remarkable career saw him record over 1,000 points (1,010), post 155 steals and 253 assists. He was a first-team All-Ivy League selection as a junior, when he led Princeton to a 13-1 Ivy record and the league championship. He was a second-team selection as a senior.
The former Tiger returned to baseball only as sophomore, after two years away from the sport. He would hit .344 with 20 RBIs as a junior and then .385 with nine home runs, 33 RBIs and 35 runs scored as a senior, when he earned first-team All-Ivy League honors.
