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ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The Navy baseball team got dominant pitching and timely hitting on Saturday as the team swept a doubleheader from Princeton at Terwilliger Brothers Field at Max Bishop Stadium. The Mids (17-5-1) defeated the Tigers (5-9) by a score of 1-0 in game one behind a complete game shutout by Luke Gillingham (Sr., Coronado, Calif.) and then used seven shutout innings from George Coughlin (Jr., Arvada, Calif.) and three hits by Robert Currie (Sr., Atlanta, Ga.) to win the second contest by a 7-0 decision.

"We had a really good day pitching," remarked head coach Paul Kostacopoulos. "We were around the plate all day and got Princeton to swing at some pitcher's pitches. All of our pitchers did great.

"You kind of expect a tight first game. Whenever you're playing a seven-inning game and have two really good pitchers on the mound its going to come down to a few key plays. Currie was our guy to come through with the big play as he drove in our only run."

On the day, Navy's pitching staff combined to hold Princeton to just six hits over 16.0 innings of action. In game one, Gillingham earned the shutout with two hits allowed, while Coughlin permitted three hits over his seven innings on the mound in the second game. Jett Meenach (Jr., Flower Mound, Texas) and Jackson Zoch (Fr., San Juan Capistrano, Calif.) closed out the twinbill with two innings of one-hit relief.

"George was really good and schemed an excellent game," said Kostacopoulos. "He was able to get his breaking ball over and sit on the outside corner with his fastball. He had something that he doesn't have all the time, and that was that he was able to bump up his fastball with two strikes. He froze some guys on fastballs, which was nice to see.

"Luke also did a great job of scheming the first game. He really pitched and moved the ball around well. He threw three good pitches and was tough to get a beat on."

Offensively, Currie led the Mids with a five-for-eight showing at the plate with three RBIs, two runs scored and two stolen bases over the doubleheader. Travis Blue (Jr., Orange, Calif.) aided Navy's attack by reaching base four times in game two with three walks and an RBI double.

"We haven't been swinging the bat as well as I would've liked over the past week in terms of getting hits, but we did a good job of building and getting better at bats today," said Kostacopoulos. "Finishing with ten hits in game two is a good sign that we're starting to break out again."

The action on Saturday started with a classic pitchers' duel in game one as Gillingham went head-to-head with Princeton's Luke Strieber. After easy first innings for both hurlers, each team's offense tried to gain traction in the second frame. Princeton used a single and two walks to load the bases versus Gillingham before Stephen Born (So., Strafford, Pa.) backed up his senior pitcher with a sliding catch in right field off the bat of Cody Phillips to end the threat. Carrying over that momentum from his defense Born came back in the bottom of the frame and led off with a double to the left-center field gap. After Adrian Chinnery (Jr., Wilmington, Del.) was hit by a pitch, a sacrifice bunt put two Mids in scoring position, but Strieber was able to come out unscathed with back-to-back putouts.

Following those two slight hiccups in the second inning both Gillingham and Strieber cruised through the third and fourth innings, with the Midshipman hurler striking out two Tigers in the third and getting a double play from his defense in the fourth.

With the game still scoreless going into the fifth inning, a three-up, three-down top of the frame set up Navy to score the game's only run during its at bat. Ben McGrath (So., Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.) got the offense going with a leadoff single up the middle. After he was bunted into scoring position by Matthew Wilcox (Fr., Los Gatos, Calif.) and advanced to third on a ground out, Currie stepped up with two outs showing on the scoreboard. The senior team captain broke the tie as he shot a hard ground ball through the right side of the infield to plate McGrath and give Navy a 1-0 lead.

Gillingham made sure that margin would stand up as he allowed just two batters to reach over the final two frames. He secured his first complete game shutout of the season with a final line of seven innings, two hits, four walks and six strikeouts. With the shutout, he dropped his season ERA to 1.80.

For the game, Navy outhit Princeton, 5-2. Currie recorded two of the Mids' hit, while Paul Tupper, Princeton's leftfielder notched both of his team's hits.

In the second game, Navy got its offense going early as the Mids scored two runs in the bottom of the first inning. Currie led off the scoring drive with double to left-center field. After Blue reached on a walk, the duo slowly moved around the diamond before Born plated Currie on an RBI groundout and Chinnery drove in Blue with a single to center field.

Coughlin sent a message to the Tigers in the next inning that two runs would be enough as he emphatically struck out the side with all three batters going down on strike three swinging. The junior right-handed pitcher struck out four of the first six batters that he faced on Saturday.

After a rough start, Princeton's starting pitcher Chad Powers settled in over the next three innings facing just 10 batters over that span.

The game advanced into the fifth inning with the score 2-0 in favor of the Mids. After Coughlin hung another zero on the scoreboard in the top of the frame, his offense extended him an insurance run in the bottom of the inning. Wilcox was the facilitator of Navy's third run, as he connected for a leadoff single before advancing two bases on a pair of a mixture of wild pitch by Powers and a passed ball by the Tigers' catcher Max West. Once on third base, he scored on an RBI groundout by Currie.

Up 3-0, Navy used the energy of a crisply turned strike'em out, throw'em out in the top of the sixth inning to break the game open in the bottom of the frame. In the home squad's at bat in the sixth, the Mids sent nine men to the plate versus Tiger pitching. The Mids touched up Powers for three hits and a hit by pitch before he pulled from the game. Navy continued its hot hitting against the Tigers' newest reliever Nick Brady and eventually ended the inning ahead 6-0. The Mids got RBIs from Wilcox, Currie and Sean Trent (Sr., Sorrento, Fla.) in the sixth inning.

Coughlin closed out his scoreless outing with a three-up, three-down top of the seventh. He rung up the first two batters, Joseph Flynn and Paul Tupper on strike three looking before sitting down Max West on a weak pop up to Wilcox at second base. Coughlin's final line was 7.0 innings, three hits, one walk and nine strikeouts.

Navy tacked on its final run in the bottom of the eighth inning when Blue drove in Currie on an RBI double into the left field corner.

Meenach and Zoch made sure Coughlin's standout start was closed out as the relief duo retired six of the seven Tiger batters that they faced in the eighth and ninth innings to secure the combined shutout. As a pitching staff, Navy has now hurled four shutouts over its first 23 games.

In the Mids' 7-0 victory, Navy outhit Princeton, 10-4. Currie (3-5), Wilcox (2-3) and Trent (2-5) led the way for the host team.

Navy and Princeton will conclude their four-game series on Sunday with another doubleheader. Game one of Sunday's twinbill is schedule for a 12 p.m. first pitch.