Cornell, Princeton Come to Biondi Park This Weekend

The Games: Dartmouth (13-6, 2-2) vs. Cornell (3-17, 1-3) and Princeton (10-13, 4-0)
Locations: Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park (1,300), Hanover, N.H.
First pitch vs. Cornell: Doubleheader Saturday, April 9 at noon
First pitch at Princeton: Doubleheader Sunday, April 10 at noon
Series Record vs. Cornell: Big Green lead, 87-75-1
Series Record vs. Princeton: Tigers lead, 89-79
Live Video — Big Green Insider
Live Audio — Wayne Young '72 (play-by-play), Orli Kleiner '12 (analyst)
Live Stats
Complete Game Notes

Finishing Play Against the Gehrigs
Having played 18 of its first 19 games outside of Hanover, the home Ivy schedule begins this weekend with Cornell and Princeton coming to town. Dartmouth has immensely enjoyed Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park since it was updated and upgraded before the 2009 season, posting a 29-5 record at the site. And the Big Green also have an 11-game home winning streak on the line, the third longest in the country.

Last Week in Review
•    Dartmouth opened up the Ivy League slate by splitting its first four games, first sweeping a doubleheader from Columbia on Saturday before getting swept at Penn the following day. On Wednesday, the Big Green bounced back by doubling up Quinnipiac on the road, 16-8.
•    The doubleheader loss at Penn ended a streak of 23 straight Ivy regular-season series Dartmouth had either won or split, dating back to 2007.
•    Junior Joe Sclafani hit two home runs — one a grand slam — in the romp at Quinnipiac, his second career multi-homer game. The first came in the regionals last year against 11th-ranked Miami.
•    On the mound, junior Cole Sulser won his 10th straight decision by tossing 7.2 shutout innings at Columbia in an 8-1 triumph.

Last Time Against the Big Red
Dartmouth opened the 2010 Ivy League slate at Cornell last year, and Corey Pappel shut down the Big Green in the first game of the twinbill in a 2-0 Big Red victory. Pappel allowed just six base runners on three hits and three walks, and his offense got him solitary runs in the first and third innings against Robert Young to take the first game. The second game was a bit of a different story as Dartmouth broke open a 1-1 game in the fifth to win a laugher, 16-1. Jeff Onstott drove in a career-high five runs and Chris O'Dowd banged out four of the Green's 15 hits, scoring three times. Ben Murray was stellar on the mound, yielding just a solo homer among five hits over eight innings to earn the victory.

The Overall Record vs. Cornell
•    Dartmouth has squared off against the Big Red 163 times, owning an 87-75-1 record.
•    The Big Green have won 15 of the past 20 meetings, dating back to the 2002 season.
•    Dartmouth head coach Bob Whalen has a 28-17 mark in games against Cornell.
•    The first games in the series took place on April 10-11, 1906, with Cornell winning both games.

Scouting Report on the Big Red
•    It has been a difficult season thus far as Cornell enters the weekend with a 3-17 overall record and 1-3 in conference. The Ivy win came in the final game of last weekend against Brown, 13-8.
•    The offense has struggled, averaging 4.3 runs a game and scoring more than five runs in just a quarter of its contests.
•    Outfielder Brian Billigen (.290/.343/.629) has provided most of the power with four home runs and three triples.
•    Three players are hitting between .305 and .315, including first baseman Mickey Brodsky who leads the team with 13 RBIs and four stolen bases.
•    The moundsmen are also having some issues with a team ERA of 6.20 — the NCAA average this year is 4.62.
•    The starting rotation has had its moments, but after the top three starters, the rest of the staff sports an ERA of 8.25.
•    The defense is also last in the league with 49 errors and a .938 fielding percentage.

Probable Starting Pitchers
• Against Cornell, sophomore LHP Kyle Hunter (3-1, 2.52) will go for his fourth straight victory in the opener of the doubleheader. The southpaw has a career ERA of 3.21, walking fewer than 1.5 batters per nine innings. Dartmouth has won 10 of his 13 career starts. Junior RHP Cole Sulser (2-0, 2.92) is expected to toe the slab in the nightcap. In each of his last three outings, Sulser has struck out exactly seven batters, spanning a total of 18.2 innings (10.1 K per nine).
• The Big Red will likely go with RHP Jadd Schmeltzer (1-3, 3.60) in the first game. Opponents are hitting just .259 against him, and he has allowed just four extra-base hits — all doubles — in 30 innings. For game two, RHP Taylor Wood (1-4, 4.81) is the anticipated starter. Last week he gave up five runs (four in the first two innings) over seven innings and took a loss against Yale.

Last Time Against the Tigers
The two teams played a pair of hotly contested games in Princeton last year with Tiger right-hander Zak Hermans outdueling Kyle Hendricks in the first game, 2-0. Hermans went six innings and struck out six while giving up just four hits and a walk, while Hendricks fanned 11 in his six frames. Brian Berkowitz broke the scoreless tie in the fourth with a lead-off homer, and it would be the only run Princeton would need. In the nightcap, Dartmouth tied the game in the ninth on a Chris O'Dowd solo homer, then won it in the 10th when O'Dowd doubled home Brett Gardner for a 5-4 victory. Cole Sulser got the win in relief of Kyle Hunter, and Ryan Smith earned the save.

The Overall Record vs. Princeton
•    The Tigers have the advantage in the all-time series, going 89-79 against Dartmouth.
•    Over the last six seasons, the Big Green have won 10 of the 12 meetings.
•    Princeton has defeated Dartmouth three times in the Ivy Championship Series since the 2000 season — 2000, 2001 and 2004.
•    Dartmouth head coach Bob Whalen has a 20-29 record against the Tigers.
•    The two teams first met on the diamond in 1880 with Princeton winning both contests, 2-0 and 9-4. The Tigers won 17 of the first 18 games.

Scouting Report on the Tigers
•    Princeton has won seven straight, including its first four league games, to rebound from a 3-13 start to the season.
•    The offense has come to life during the winning streak, hitting .356 as a team to boost the season batting average to .270.
•    Most of the Tigers' power has come from catcher Sam Mulroy, who has five of the nine home runs, a .598 slugging percentage and 25 RBIs.
•    Freshman Mike Ford is the most adept Tiger at getting on base, easily leading the team with a .440 on-base percentage while hitting .329.
•    While the team ERA of 5.95 is nothing to write home about, the top ends of the rotation and the bullpen have been very good. Zak Hermans and Matt Bowman have combined for a 3.19 ERA over 53.2 innings as starters, and Kevin Link, A.J. Goetz and Ryan Makis have thrown a total of 39 innings, mostly out of the bullpen, with an ERA of 1.85.
•    If Princeton needs a left-hander, David Palms will get the call in relief. Opponents are hitting just .222 against him in 19.1 innings, but he has walked 12 as well.
•    With 40 errors, the Tigers rank sixth in the league in fielding with a .951 percentage, plus have turned just 10 double plays.

Probable Starting Pitchers
• If Dartmouth stays true to last week, junior RHP Kyle Hendricks (2-2, 1.73) will take the mound for game one against Princeton. He was a tough-luck loser last weekend, allowing just two earned runs in a complete-game effort at Penn, and would be among the top 10 nationally in strikeouts per nine innings (11.77) if he had enough innings to qualify. For game two, freshman LHP Mitch Horacek (2-0, 9.18) is anticipated to go for the Green. He struggled in the first inning at Penn, allowing six runs, but pitched much better after that before having his day end in the fourth.
• The question is if Princeton will hold its top two starters — Bowman and Hermans — for Sunday instead of throwing them against Harvard, which is 3-21 on the season. If not, freshman two-way player RHP Mike Ford (1-3, 7.09) will probably pitch game one. He is coming off his first collegiate victory last week against Brown in which he yielded just one run in a seven-inning complete game. The second game would up for grabs, but likely RHP Matt Grabowski (1-2, 5.28), who hurled 4.1 innings in the second game last Sunday having surrendered three runs, but only one earned, before yielding to Palms.

What's Up Next
Dartmouth hosts ACC foe Boston College on Tuesday afternoon before scooting down the road to Holy Cross the following day. Next weekend, the Big Green travel to Yale to begin the Rolfe Division showdowns, playing noon doubleheaders on Saturday and Sunday against the Bulldogs.

Games Available Online
Fans that want to watch the action from this weekend's games from the comfort of their own homes can do so through the official web site of Dartmouth athletics — DartmouthSports.com — with Big Green Insider. Each of the four games will be video streamed and available to subscribers of the service. For those who just want to hear the mellifluous tones of Wayne Young '72 and Orli Kleiner '12 can do so by listening to the free audio broadcast on the web site. And, of course, live stats will be available for each game as well.

Offense Among Nation's Best
At the end of last weekend, Dartmouth continued to be ranked among the top 10 in five offensive statistical categories — triples per game (0.61, 4th), doubles per game (2.56, 5th), scoring (8.7, 6th), slugging percentage (.489, 7th) and batting average (.329, 8th). Sophomore Ennis Coble was 31st in on-base percentage at .507 and 41st in batting at .413, and junior Joe Sclafani was 20th with 0.17 triples per game. Those numbers only improved after beating Quinnipiac 16-8, but national stats are released just once a week.

Sweet 16
For the fifth time this year already, Dartmouth put up at least 16 runs against an opponent when it defeated Quinnipiac on April 6, 16-8. In only two other years have the Big Green had as many 16-run games, most recently in 2004, but first occurring in 1899. No, not 1988, but 1899. Captain Pitt Drew's team actually topped 20 in four of those 19th-century games, including 28 against Bowdoin. In 2004, head coach Bob Whalen's crew also had 20 or more in four of those contests, with a high of 23 against Fairleigh-Dickinson.

Sclafani's Shot and Slam
Junior Joe Sclafani belted two crucial home runs at Quinnipiac in the 16-8 victory on April 6. The first came in the fifth with a man aboard after Dartmouth had seen its 7-0 lead trimmed to two runs. The second capped a six-run ninth of what was a 10-8 lead to leave no doubt as to the outcome and gave him a career-high six RBIs on the day. It was Sclafani's second career two-homer game, the first coming in the 2010 NCAA Regional at Miami against the 11th-ranked Hurricanes. The four four-baggers in those two games equal his home run count for the rest of his career to date.

Half a Score Straight for Sulser
After winning the first of two games at Columbia, junior Cole Sulser was commissioned to tame the Lion bats to go for a sweep. 'Tame' is a tame word for what he did to Columbia, surrendering just four singles and a walk in 7.2 scoreless innings as the Big Green went on to an 8-1 victory. Sulser won his 10th straight decision in the game, dating back to his freshman year. His 13-2 record gives him the second best winning percentage for a Dartmouth pitcher ever (.833), behind Ted Olson, Class of 1936, who went 18-2 in his distinguished career for a .900 winning percentage.

Brooks Bomb Boosts Big Green
After giving up a 3-2 lead in the sixth of a seven-inning game at Columbia, Dartmouth needed a boost to win its first Ivy game of the year. Senior Jason Brooks provided that boost with a one-out, three-run homer to send the Big Green to a 6-4 victory. His round-tripper was the third of the day for Dartmouth, joining Joe Sclafani and Chris O'Dowd, who each hit solo jacks in the first frame.

Gab on the Green
•    Sophomore Chris O'Dowd had his 23-game hit streak (considered a Dartmouth record before any research has been done on the topic) snapped in the first game of the Penn twinbill on April 3. The catcher was held hitless in both games.
•    Freshman Mike Dodakian earned the victory at Quinnipiac by pitching 1.2 scoreless innings of relief. He also got his first career loss in the previous game at Penn.
•    Senior Jeff Onstott is on the verge of moving into the career top 10 for hits at Dartmouth. He has 169 entering the weekend and needs just one to move into a tie for 10th with Mike Levy '01.
•    Senior Sam Bean stole three bases in the 14-10 loss at Penn, after having swiped just one in his entire career. The last Big Green base runner to nab three bags in one game was Damon Wright '08 against Navy in the third game of 2008.
•    Junior Jake Carlson hit his first home run of the season with Dartmouth down to its final out in a 3-2 loss at Penn. His two-run shot kept hope alive.
•    The third inning has been big for Dartmouth this season — the team is hitting .451 during that frame. Only one player that has come to the plate in the third is hitting less than .375, and only three under .429.
•    The Big Green have also clobbered the ball late in games, batting .394 from the eighth inning on.
•    Junior Kyle Hendricks has not allowed an earned run after the third inning in any of his four starts.

Schedules