Final Ivy Series Starts Saturday Versus Harvard

Dedicating Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park
This is dedication weekend for Dartmouth baseball as the brand new Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park was officially dedicated on Friday in front of a crowd of over 300 alumni, friends and fans. The Big Green baseball squad is looking to give those people something to cheer for with Harvard in town for a doubleheader on Saturday before heading down to Cambridge to end the regular season with another twinbill against the Crimson.
Dartmouth has taken full advantage of their new surroundings thus far, winning 10 of 11 games at this ballpark. And with a two-game lead in the Rolfe Division, the magic number to clinch the crown is just three. Any combination of Big Green victories and Brown losses that add up to three will leave Dartmouth in sole possession of first place and homefield advantage for the Ivy Championship series on May 2-3.

Last week in Review
For the second straight weekend, the Big Green won three out of four in a Rolfe Division weekend, this time on the road at Yale. Dartmouth dropped game one to the Bulldogs, 4-1, before the offense exploded for 42 runs in the last three contests.
During the week, the Green traveled to Burlington, Vt., to take on Vermont for the last time before the disbanding of the program there. Dartmouth had a 6-1 lead melt in the fifth, but junior Nick Santomauro provided a pinch-hit, three-run homer in the seventh to put the Big Green back on top, 9-6. Again the Catamounts rallied, even taking the lead in the bottom half at 10-9, thanks in large part to a three-run homer of their own. But Dartmouth would not be denied as senior Ray Allen and junior Brett Gardner each delivered RBI singles in the eighth before junior Jim Wren extended his hitting streak to 10 games in the ninth with a two-run double.

Probable Starting Pitchers
?   For the fifth time in as many Ivy weekends, the Dartmouth rotation will line up the same way. Junior LHP Robert Young (3-3, 5.40), who is coming off his first conference loss, gets the ball for game one. He went the distance at Yale, yielding four runs, but the Bulldog pitcher was stingier giving up just one. Junior RHP Ben Murray (4-1, 4.19), third in the Ivy League in ERA, will get the ball in game two on Saturday. The control artist was a bit off with his location last weekend, walking as many in seven innings (three, the horror!) as he had all season.
?   The rookie tandem of RHP Kyle Hendricks (4-2, 4.30) and RHP Cole Sulser (3-1, 9.62) will close out the Ivy regular season slate in Cambridge. Hendricks posted one of his best outings of the year last week with a complete-game four-hitter against the Bulldogs, allowing just one earned run while fanning a season-high eight. Sulser cruised through four innings before stumbling in the fifth, but not enough to cost him a victory. He leads the team in strikeouts and averages just over one per inning.
?   Freshman RHP John Klees (2-2, 5.13) has emerged as the Crimson's most reliable starter, and he gets the nod in game one. He held the stout Brown offense in check, allowing just three runs, but took a hard-luck loss, 3-1. Look for LHP Brent Suter (3-4, 5.92), another rookie, to toe the slab in the second game. Suter is a strikeout artist with 50 punchouts in 48.2 innings this year. In Cambridge on Sunday, Harvard will line up with junior RHP Dan Zailskas (0-2, 6.43) on the mound to start the day instead of his everyday position at first base. A third freshman, RHP Conner Hulse (0-5, 6.61), will start the series finale. Like Klees, Zailskas was victim of poor run support at Brown, losing a 3-1 decision. Hulse was knocked around a bit against the Bears, but allowed just two runs over eight innings versus Yale the week before.

The Overall Record vs. Harvard
This series dates back to 1869 ? the same year as the first professional baseball team was formed ? and the two schools have met on the diamond 222 times entering the weekend. The Crimson dominated the series in the early years, winning 30 of the 41 games before 1900. Over the last decade it has been very evenly matched, however, with both sides winning 20 times. Harvard has the overall advantage at 125-97, but Dartmouth took three of four last year as it clinched homefield advantage for the Ivy Championship series against Columbia.

Scouting the Crimson
?   The season got off to a bad start for Harvard, losing 16 of its first 18 contests. In addition, Crimson star pitcher Max Perlman, who missed all of 2008, threw just 57 pitches in the second game of the year and has not pitched since.
?   The season turned for the better at Penn where Harvard swept a doubleheader. The following weekend the Crimson swept Cornell and split with Princeton, then took three of four from Yale before getting swept in a four-game set at Brown.
?   Two players provide the pop in the lineup, shortstop Matt Rogers and right fielder Tom Stack-Babich who both have eight home runs. But Rogers, who leads the team with 30 RBIs, has slumped recently with just three hits in the last six games.
?   Third baseman Harry Douglas tops the team in average at .346 with 12 doubles with Rogers next at .336 and Taylor Meehan right behind at .335.
?   The pitching staff has struggled outside of the Ivy League (7.92 ERA overall), but has performed much better on conference weekends (4.97 ERA).
?   The team .956 fielding percentage ranks sixth in the league and the Crimson have turned the fewest double plays, but have thrown out nearly 40 percent of base stealers.

What's Up Next
The final two games of the regular season are on tap for the Big Green, with a home game against Hartford on Tuesday at 3 p.m., and a game at Boston College the following day at 3 p.m. as well. Should Dartmouth win the division crown this weekend, the Ivy Championship would take place at Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park next weekend.

No Place Like Home
Dartmouth College celebrated the inaugural season of baseball at Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park yesterday with a formal dedication ceremony. Today, President James Wright and the two youngest Biondi sons, William and Cameron, are throwing out ceremonial first pitches. The Big Green have taken full advantage of their new surroundings thus far, winning 10 of 11 games at this ballpark.

Schedules