2 Hours Until First Pitch

There is a little over two hours until the first pitch of the baseball game between the Princeton High School varsity team (Little Tigers) and the Steinart High School varisty team (team mascot unknown) for the first game in the 2007 Mercer County Baseball Tournament. This game pits the #1 ranked team (SHS) against the #16 ranked team (PHS) in a game that has a story within a story within a story.

The match-up would have probably seen PHS Colin Sarafin take the mound against the highly touted SHS team. Unfortunately, due to an archaic and unfair high school eligibility ruling, Colin Sarafin was declared ineligible for the first 10 games of the spring 2007 season due to playing on the Peddie High School JV team when he was in the 8th grade. I know this rule is to prevent older players from playing multiple years of varisty but as is typical with these things, it was used against the PHS team by local teams who had suffered defeat from the Princeton ace, even though he is the same age as his peers.

The story within the story is that Dan Etherton (yes, my son) will be taking the mound to lead the Princeton defense. This will be his 3rd outing as a starter this year after pitching sporadically over the past several years. Dan has been focusing his efforts on being the best centerfielder and hitter that he can be but he has stepped up to the challenge in a remarkable way. Possibly no one would be able to fend off the strong Steinart offense, but Dan gets to take on that challenge in a little less than 2 hours.

I'll report the outcome by tomorrow. Wish the PHS Little Tigers well as they are the underdogs we always want to cheer for. More later.