While friends and classmates will be partying at Spring Fling Saturday on the President's Lawn, the baseball team will be keenly focused on working toward its second consecutive NESCAC East division title at Huskins Field.
To do so, the Jumbos (20-5-1, 9-0 NESCAC) will need two wins in a three-game series with Bowdoin (19-8 overall, 7-1). Otherwise, the head-to-head tiebreaker for the No. 1 seed in the upcoming conference tournament will favor the Polar Bears.
Though the NESCAC's alternating East-West system means that the Jumbos won't host tournament games this May, they don't take winning the division lightly.
"We take pride in doing well in our conference," senior pitcher Ed Bernstein said. "We only get twelve league games every year and every one is important. Every game is a chance to build on what we have."
Bowdoin won't be taking the series lightly either — especially considering that the Polar Bears have not won the East division since 2006, their only first-place finish in the NESCAC era. Revenge may also be on their minds, as Tufts won three of the four matchups between the teams in 2010 and has not lost a season series to Bowdoin since the Polar Bears swept the Jumbos on the way to their title five years ago.
More recently, the Jumbos ended the Polar Bears' season in Game 6 of the NESCAC championship last year, laying more seeds in a brewing rivalry.
"Bowdoin will be the other team from the East in the playoffs, so we definitely want to do well this weekend in order to gain confidence heading in," junior pitcher Dave Ryan said.
The Polar Bears, who enter this weekend's series having won nine of their past 11 games. are led by two starting pitchers — sophomore Oliver Van Zant and freshman Christian Martin — each of whom will pose a challenge to the Jumbos' lineup. Van Zant, the reigning NESCAC Rookie and Pitcher of the Year, is coming off a strong showing against Colby that earned him conference Pitcher of the Week honors on Monday.
A hard-throwing right-hander, Van Zant is 2-1 with a 2.75 ERA this season in seven starts. He has struck out 51 batters in 39 1/3 innings of work while walking just 16. But while most teams struggled to adjust to Van Zant's velocity, the Jumbos fared just fine against him last year, scoring five runs (two earned) on three hits and four walks in four innings.
Martin, the only other Bowdoin pitcher who has started seven times this spring, enters with a 4-1 mark and 2.95 ERA, as well as 53 strikeouts in 46 innings. The Lake Bluff, Ill., native, who attended the same high school as Jumbos senior leftfielder Ian Goldberg, doesn't throw as hard as Van Zant, but features better command of his pitches.
Bowdoin's third starter will be a wildcard, as coach Mike Connolly has used senior Ben Higgins and freshmen Joe Lefeber and Sam Herzig in that role this year. Tufts beat Higgins in the NESCAC Championship last year, and both freshmen have struggled in their first collegiate seasons.
Offensively, the Polar Bears are one of the most patient teams in the conference, having drawn 102 walks in 27 games. But Bowdoin's best hitters thrive on fastballs, so if Tufts' pitchers are able to get ahead in the count and mix in their offspeed arsenals, they are likely to have success.
Senior Matt Ruane leads the Polar Bears with a .368 batting average, while classmate and quad-captain Brett Gorman has crushed four homers and is the team's best power threat. Dan Hicks, also a senior quad-captain, is batting .297 and has not gone deep this season but his keen eye has resulted in 16 walks and a team-high .438 on-base percentage.
"They have a good lineup," Ryan said of the Polar Bears, who are batting .303 as a team. "But at this point it's about making our pitches and executing against everyone. Once it's closer to game time, we'll be thinking of plans for each hitter, but executing is what's most important."
The Jumbos, now ranked No. 17 in the country, are confident that their best efforts are good enough to beat any opponent.
"Starting on Friday afternoon, we need to play hard every pitch of every inning and keep working on getting better every time we take the field," junior catcher Matt Collins said. "If we do those things, we can compete with anyone."
First pitch for Friday's game is set for 3 p.m. at Huskins Field, where the Jumbos are a perfect 7-0 this season. Tufts has outscored its opponents 46-16 on its home field and has not dropped a NESCAC game at Huskins since April 18, 2009.
