Dartmouth Baseball Swept in Ivy Doubleheader by Brown

April 16, 2005

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HANOVER, N.H. - The Dartmouth baseball team saw its six-game Ivy League winning streak come to an end when it was swept in a doubleheader by Brown, 4-1 and 17-4, on Saturday at Red Rolfe Field.

Freshman Damon Wright (Dallas, Texas) provided an offensive highlight for the Big Green (9-12, 6-4 Ivy) in the second game when he smacked his first collegiate home run. Senior Josh Bailey (Lexington, Ky.) recorded his 100th career hit.

In game one, Brown (14-13, 6-2) plated a two-out run off Dartmouth sophomore Jeff Wilkerson (Walnut Creek, Calif.) in the top of the first, but the Big Green got the run back in the second inning of the seven-inning contest.

Bailey hit a stand-up triple to straightaway center field, and the ball ended up rolling all the way to the 445-foot sign. Senior Marty Hebert (Salisbury, Md.) hit a sacrifice fly to tie the game but was the first of 16 consecutive batters set down over the next five-plus innings by Brown starter Bryan Tews. Bailey's hit would stand up as Dartmouth's last.

Brown took the lead and built upon it with single runs in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. Bobby Wiginton hit a two-out RBI double in fifth, Danny Hughes hit a home run to right in the sixth, and Wiginton scampered home on a fielder's choice with two down in the seventh.

Wilkerson was the hard-luck loser, allowing four runs on nine hits over 6-2/3 innings while striking out three and walking two. Tews went the route for Brown, allowing two hits while walking one and striking out four.

The second game was less close than the first, as the Bears used six-run fourth and fifth innings off Dartmouth junior ace Josh Faiola (Pueblo, Colo.) in a 17-4 rout. The runs were the most allowed by Dartmouth to Brown since April 25, 1981.

Brown scored a two-out run in the second to forge a 1-0 lead, but Wright put the Big Green up, 2-1, on one swing. In his first Ivy plate appearance, Wright launched a 1-0 pitch over the left-field fence and into the trees with one down in the bottom of the inning.

However, Brown took advantage of two key errors in the fourth to plate six runs, five unearned. With runners on the corners and no one out, Hughes singled through the right side to drive home the only earned run of the inning and tie the game at 2. A walk and two outs later, Faiola induced a bases-loaded line drive off the bat of James Lowe to sophomore left fielder Andrew Nacario (Carlsbad, Calif.), who misjudged the ball and allowed the ball to roll all the way to the wall after a failed last-second dive. Bailey mishandled a routine grounder to the next batter, and Paul Christian doubled in the fifth and sixth runs of the 10-batter inning.

Dartmouth got a run back in the bottom of the inning when freshman Erik Bell (Sierra Madre, Calif.) dropped a double into left with two down that scored Bailey to make it 7-3.

Brown responded with six more runs in another 10-batter inning in the fifth. The big blows of the inning were a three-run homer from Lowe and a two-run shot off the bat of Christian.

After two more Brown runs in the sixth, Bell singled into left to plate Wright for Dartmouth's fourth run.

The Bears scored twice more in the seventh before a couple Big Green players picked up milestone hits. Bailey poked a single into right in the bottom of the eighth as he became the 36th player in program history with 100 hits, and freshman Jason Blydell (Nahant, Mass.) sent a one-out single into center in the ninth for his first collegiate safety.

Faiola was tagged with the loss for Dartmouth. He allowed 13 runs - eight earned - on 12 hits in five innings while walking two and striking out four.

Jeff Dietz notched the win after allowing all four runs during eight innings of work.

The big hitters for the Big Green were the freshmen, Bell and Wright. Wright finished 2-for-3 with two runs and two RBIs while Bell was 2-for-3 with a pair of runs driven in. Sophomore Will Bashelor (Bozrah, Conn.) stole his 20th base of the season in the first inning, making him just the eighth player in program history with 20 in a season.

Dartmouth returns to action tomorrow in another Ivy League doubleheader at 12 p.m. against Brown at Red Rolfe Field.

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