Big Green Pound Out Season-High 20 Hits in Victory

Friday, May 14

Hanover, N.H.

3:00 pm

Dartmouth College

26-16

Castleton State

32-14

Castleton State

Dartmouth

Big Green Pound Out Season-High 20 Hits in Victory

5/14/2010 5:00:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

By: Dartmouth

Boxscore

HANOVER, N.H. — Sophomore Joe Sclafani and junior Jason Brooks each had four hits and three RBIs, while freshman Zack Bellenger drove in four runs as Dartmouth banged out a season-high 20 hits to defeat Castleton State on Friday afternoon at Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park, 14-4. Both teams scheduled the game earlier this week as a tune-up for their respective trips to the NCAA Tournament, Dartmouth (26-16) at the Division I level and the Spartans (32-14) at Division III.

Four Big Green pitchers combined to strike out 10 hitters on the day as senior starter Ben Murray (4-5) earned the victory. In his five innings of work, he yielded three runs, only one earned, on six hits and a walk with four strikeouts.

Dartmouth scored in seven of the eight innings in which it came to the plate, beginning with two in the bottom of the first. The Big Green loaded the bases on a Sclafani single and a pair of walks, but Castleton State got a force at the plate for the first out. Bellenger came through, however, as he snuck a grounder up the middle past a diving shortstop for a two-run single. Spartan pitcher Ken Cook then struck out the next two hitters to end the frame with Dartmouth leading 2-0.

Castleton State came right back in the second to tie the game. Garrett Bissonette reached on an error to get things started, and Ted Mills poked a seeing-eye single up the middle. After a sacrifice bunt moved the runners up, Murray got the second out on strikes but fell victim to a perfectly placed pop-up down the left field line just out of the reach of the shortstop Sclafani for a two-run single.

Sclafani tripled home a run in the bottom half and scored on a grounder by junior Sam Bean. Freshman Chris O'Dowd, Brooks and Bellenger each had two-out singles to score a third run in the inning and make it a 5-2 game at the end of two innings.

Murray walked the lead-off batter to start the third, but promptly picked him off. But Billy Manley and Matt Eisenhuth both singled then pulled of a double steal before Bissonette lofted a sacrifice fly to cut the deficit to two at 5.3

The Big Green gradually pulled away from there, beginning with a Sclafani two-out single in the third to score senior Brett Gardner who had doubled. Bellenger provided a sacrifice fly in the fourth to plate O'Dowd in the fourth, and Dartmouth tacked on four more runs in the fifth with Bean providing the big blow with a two-run triple. The three-bagger was the 20th of the season for the Big Green, breaking the school record set just last year.

In the sixth, Castleton State scored its final run off junior reliever Colin Britton. Bissonette and Mills each singled to put runners on the corners, and Cameron Curler grounded into a force play at second to score Bissonette to make the score 11-4.

Brooks launched his sixth home run of the season, a two-run shot, to left-center in the seventh, and junior David Turnbull doubled and scored in the eighth on a fielder's choice grounder by freshman Ennis Coble.

Sclafani finished the day a perfect 4-for-4 with a walk, two runs and three RBIs with Brooks complementing him with a 4-for-6 afternoon with three RBIs. Both Bellenger and Bean posted a career-high in RBIs with four and three, respectively.

Taking the loss was Cook (9-4), who allowed six runs in his three innings on the mound, but also struck out five.

Mills led the 10-hit Spartan attack with three singles while Bissonette scored a pair of runs.

Dartmouth returns to the diamond on Sunday when it travels to Boston College (27-23) for a game at 12:30 p.m.