Onstott Ignites Split of Twinbill with Grand Slam

Saturday, April 10

Hanover, N.H.

12:00 p.m.

Dartmouth College

10-11, 2-3

Columbia

13-12, 4-1

Columbia

Dartmouth

Onstott Ignites Split of Twinbill with Grand Slam

4/10/2010 6:30:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

By: Dartmouth

Game One Box | Game Two Box

HANOVER, N.H. — Junior Jeff Onstott's grand slam in the fifth inning was the difference in Dartmouth's 7-4 victory over the visiting Lions of Columbia in the second game of a doubleheader at Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park on Saturday afternoon, giving the Big Green a split of the twinbill. Freshman Chris O'Dowd also homered for Dartmouth (11-11, 3-3 Ivy) for the fourth time in the last five games. Nick Cox provided the highlight of the first game for the Lions (13-13, 4-2 Ivy) by pulling off a straight steal of home as Columbia pulled out a 5-2 win.

Trailing 4-2 in the fifth inning of the nightcap, the Big Green rallied against Lion pitcher Tim Giel (1-1). Sophomore David Turnbull lined a single to right and beat a throw to second on a bunt by junior Sam Bean, putting runners on first and second. After a strikeout, sophomore Joe Sclafani walked to load the bases, and senior Brett Gardner hit a ball into the hole at short for an infield RBI single, cutting the deficit to one. On the very next pitch, Onstott launched a drive to right-center that just cleared the fence to the left of the Dartmouth scoreboard for a grand slam and a 7-4 lead.

In the top of the sixth, Dartmouth senior starter Ben Murray gave up an infield hit before getting an out on a pop up on a bunt attempt, then yielded to sophomore Cole Sulser. The right-hander retired the first eight batters he faced and tossed the final 3.2 innings of the game to earn his second save of the season. Sulser allowed a solitary hit and one walk while fanning five to close it out for Murray (2-3), who yielded four runs, three earned, on 10 hits and two walks in 5.1 frames while striking out two.

O'Dowd hit his home run — a two-run shot — in the bottom of the eighth to give the Big Green some extra insurance. Five Dartmouth hitters collected a pair of hits in the game, including Onstott with his second home run of the season and first grand slam out of eight career round-trippers. Freshman Ennis Coble had his third triple of the year among his two safeties, while Gardner had a single and a double plus scored two runs and drove in one.

Columbia had taken a 4-1 lead in the fourth thanks to a pair of Dartmouth miscues in the field. But with runners on the corners and one out, left fielder Sam Bean helped keep the Green within striking distance by hauling in a fly ball and throwing to freshman third baseman Zack Bellenger, who relayed the ball to the plate to gun down the Lion trying to score for an inning-ending double play.

Both Jon Eisen and Dean Forthun rapped out three hits to contribute to the Columbia cause. Both sides collected 11 hits as a team.

In the opening game of the doubleheader, the Lions took a 1-0 lead in the third on a Nick Crucet sacrifice fly, scoring Forthun who had doubled earlier in the inning. Dartmouth duplicated the Columbia run as Turnbull doubled and later scored on a sacrifice fly by O'Dowd.

The fourth frame turned out to be the crucial inning of the seven-inning game. Cox doubled to lead things off and went to third on a grounder to second. When senior southpaw Robert Young struck out the next hitter, he had a shot at escaping the inning with the tie intact. But with a 1-2 count on the left-handed hitting Dario Pizzano, Cox pulled off a daring steal of home. Pizzano deposited the very next pitch over the fence in right-center for his fourth homer of the year and a 3-1 Columbia advantage.

Cox came through win an RBI single in the fifth, only to have the Big Green get that tally back in the sixth on an RBI single off the bat of Onstott to score O'Dowd.

The Lions tacked on an insurance run in the seventh before Geoff Whitaker recorded the final three outs for his first save. Pat Lowery (2-2) earned the victory for Columbia with six strong innings, surrendering just two runs on five hits and a walk with five strikeouts.

Jason Banos led the nine-hit Columbia attack with three singles, while Forthun stroked a pair of doubles, scoring twice, and Crucet drove in two runs.

Young (1-3) took the loss, giving up five runs in his complete-game effort on nine hits and a couple of walks while fanning four.

Dartmouth, which has split each of its three Ivy doubleheader thus far against the Gehrig Division teams, will host Penn (12-13, 3-3 Ivy) for two games on Sunday beginning at noon. Columbia travels to Cambridge, Mass., to take on Harvard (10-15, 4-2 Ivy), which swept the Quakers in a twinbill today.