GA's Danny Hoy Key To Princeton Baseball Turnaround

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The 2015 baseball season was a difficult one for Princeton University.

The Tigers went just 7-32, winning just four of twenty Ivy League match-ups.

But the story has been much, much different here in 2016.

Princeton is 24-19 and headed to the NCAA Tournament after winning the Ivy League title. The Tigers will open play in the tourney next weekend.
A big key to success for the Tigers this year has been the play of senior infielder Danny Hoy. A native of Sellersville and a Germantown Academy product, Hoy has hit .317 with a team-high 40 runs scored. He's in the top ten in the Ancient 8 in numerous offensive categories including runs scored, average, home runs (five) and RBI (26). He was named first-team All-Ivy for the second time in his career.

He talks about what changed for the Tigers this season.

"It was kind of top-down," Hoy tells KYW Newsradio. "Our coach (Scott Bradley) had us read this book called Resilience and that's kind of been our motto this year. Our captains and our senior leaders have done a really good job kind of embodying that motto. It really kind of extended down to the freshmen. We've got a great freshman class that replaced a pretty good senior class. But our freshman who contributed were very important to our success this year. We really worked hard this year to win a lot more games and it really paid off."

Listen to the entire interview with Germantown Academy product Danny Hoy:

Princeton won the Ivy title by taking two out of three over Yale in the championship series. To make it extra dramatic, the Tigers had to rally after dropping the first game in the series and they won the decisive game in walk-off fashion.

"It was pure joy," Hoy says. "It's been something that the guys in my class, the seniors, we've been trying to do for four years and it kind of slipped further and further away from our grasp. To really, really have a chance to live that dream and kind of see that hard work pay off . . it was pure joy."

Hoy was a star during his high school days as well and he says his time in GA helped set the stage for his college success.

"I played behind a lot of good players at Germantown Academy," Hoy says. "The Coyle brothers (Tommy and Sean), the Kishes (Keenan and Colin), there were a lot of good baseball players. Learning from them, I learned what kind of work ethic it took to really be a good baseball player, to work on your game. In addition, the coaches were great. GA's very good at preparing you for the college level, whether or not you're an athlete. Time management was huge. Being at Princeton, you've got a lot of academics mixed in with a lot of athletics and in the meantime you've got to be a college student and go out and have some fun. So at GA it was the work ethic, the guys ahead of me and the coaches that taught me how to budget my time well and manage it."

Hoy and the Tigers will begin play in the NCAA Tournament next week. They will learn all the specifics of their first match-up during the selection show on Monday.