Baseball Opens Season at #13 LSU

The Games: Dartmouth (0-0) at #13 Louisiana State (7-2)
Location: Alex Box Stadium, Baton Rouge, La.
First pitches at LSU: 8 p.m. Friday, 3 p.m. Saturday, 12 p.m. Sunday (all times Eastern)
Series Record vs. LSU: First meeting
Live Video — Big Green Insider
Live Stats
Complete Game Notes

Season Opener
•   Dartmouth begins its 140th season of varsity baseball by taking on 13th-ranked LSU in a three-game series, the first-ever meetings between the two schools on the diamond.
•   Head coach Bob Whalen enters his 23rd season with an overall record of 433-426-1, including last year's 30-12 mark. In 2010, he surpassed former big league pitcher Jeff Tesreau as the Big Green's all-time winningest coach. Tesreau coached Dartmouth for 28 seasons (1919-46).
•   Dartmouth is 11-11 in the first game of the season under Whalen, having lost at UCF last year in a 9-2 ball game. Two years ago the Green defeated Wright State in Charlottesville, Va., on a walk-off double for a 3-2 win.
•   Last year the Big Green won their fourth straight Rolfe Division title with a 14-6 mark, but fell to Princeton in the best-of-three Ivy Championship Series held at the Tigers' Clarke Field, keeping Dartmouth from winning a third consecutive Ivy Championship.
•   The 30 victories last year are the most ever in the history of the program, the first time an Ivy team has reached 30 since Harvard in 1998 and just the seventh time by any league school.
•   No less than 10 players from last year's team earned All-Ivy honors, half of whom return this season. Shortstop Joe Sclafani and pitcher Cole Sulser were chosen for the first team, pitcher Kyle Hunter and utility man Ennis Coble made the second team, and catcher Chris O'Dowd received honorable mention.
•   Another All-Ivy first-teamer from 2011, pitcher Kyle Hendricks, passed up his senior season and signed with the Texas Rangers after being selected in the eighth round of the MLB Draft.
•   Dartmouth features three players on the roster that were drafted out of high school — junior catcher Chris O'Dowd (40th round), sophomore pitcher Mitch Horacek (46th round) and freshman hurler Adam Frank (43rd round).
•   While this won't come into play for a few more weeks, the Big Green open the season with a 24-game home winning streak intact, the longest in the country. The first home game will take place on March 28 (the earliest ever for Dartmouth) against Amherst.

Scouting LSU
•   The Tigers won their first five games before dropping two to Appalachian State last weekend. But a pair of slugfest victories over Grambling State and McNeese State has LSU at 7-2 on the year.
•   No longer a “Gorilla Ball” club, LSU is quite adept at getting on base and bringing those runners around to score. The Tigers have an on-base percentage of .406 and are averaging over nine runs a game to date.
•   First baseman Mason Katz is LSU's leading hitter thus far with a slash line of .500/.605/.821, six extra-base hits, 11 runs and 10 RBIs in 28 at-bats.
•   The pitching staff got off to a fantastic start in 2012, yielding just seven runs in the first six games. But in each of the last three contests, LSU has surrendered at least 10 runs, winning twice.
•   The defense has been strong with a .973 fielding percentage and averaging one error a game.

Probable Starting Pitchers
•   Junior LHP Kyle Hunter (5-3, 3.77 ERA in 2011) will throw the season opener for a second straight season, making this the fifth straight year a southpaw will have the honor. Hunter has led the team in innings pitched in each of his first two seasons, tying for the league lead in victories (5) during his sophomore campaign.
•   In game two, sophomore LHP Mitch Horacek (3-2, 6.86 in 2011) will toe the slab, followed by another left-hander in junior LHP Michael Johnson (3-0, 4.39).
•   LSU will counter with just the opposite — three right-handers. First up will be star RHP Kevin Gausman (2-0, 0.69) who has won both of his starts while allowing just one run in 13 innings with 14 strikeouts. On Saturday, RHP Ryan Eades (1-1, 0.79), whose lone loss was a 1-0 pitchers' duel against Appalachian State last weekend. Closing out the series will be RHP Kevin McCune (1-1, 3.00).

What's Up Next
Dartmouth has a week and a half off before heading to California for spring break with nine games scheduled in 10 days, four of which are against teams in at least one of the national polls — Cal Poly and UC Irvine.

Preseason Player of the Year
For the third straight year, Joe Sclafani was chosen by Baseball America as the Ivy League's preseason Player of the Year. In three seasons at Dartmouth, the shortstop has hit .338 with 27 doubles, a school-record 16 triples, nine home runs, 131 runs scored and 92 RBIs while getting on base at a .423 clip. Sclafani was also named the best defensive infielder and one of the top three pure hitters in the league in a separate poll of the league's coaches conducted by CollegeBaseballInsider.com, plus was ranked among the top 100 returning college baseball players this year by

Strike-Seeking Pitches
For the past three years, the Dartmouth pitching staff has been the stingiest in terms of issuing free passes. In both 2009 and 2010, the Big Green hurlers walked fewer batters per nine innings than any other Division I team. Last year, they weren't far from the top, issuing just 2.24 walks per nine innings to rank third behind only Florida (1.82) and Dayton (2.18). Cole Sulser who have ranked third nationally among pitchers in the category at 0.74 per nine innings, but he fell 1.1 innings shy of qualifying.

Big Green Are Road Warriors …
As is custom for Dartmouth, it will begin the season on the road for most of March. The first 12 games — and 16 of the first 17 — will be played away from Hanover. The home schedule begins on March 28 against Amherst.

… But Love the Homestead
Dartmouth enters the 2012 season having won 24 consecutive games at its home venue, Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park, the longest streak in the country. Last year the Big Green won all 14 of the games they hosted and, since the park was renovated before the 2009 season, own a 42-5 (.894) record there. The last team to beat Dartmouth in Hanover was Penn on April 11, 2009 in the first game of a doubleheader. Entering this weekend, the next closest streak of success belong to South Carolina at 15.

Playing the Numbers
The Big Green will be tested early and often in 2012 with seven games against teams currently ranked in at least one of the four polls. The LSU Tigers, ranked anywhere from 13 to 20 in each, host Dartmouth's first three games in Baton Rouge, La. Then during the Green's spring trip to California, Dartmouth will square off against Cal Poly (#22 by Collegiate Baseball) once and UC Irvine (#30 by the NCBWA) three times. The last ranked team Dartmouth beat was #21 Pepperdine in 2006 by a 3-2 margin in 11 innings, although the Big Green lost two of their five games against ranked teams two years ago by just a single run.

2011 All-Ivy Honors for the Green
After a 2010 season in which Dartmouth won the Ivy Championship for the second straight year without a first-team All-Ivy performer, the Big Green had four earn first-team honors in 2011, yet fell just short in the best-of-three ICS at Princeton. The players on the first team were pitchers Kyle Hendricks and Cole Sulser, relief pitcher Ryan Smith and shortstop Joe Sclafani. Dartmouth had four on the second team — pitcher Kyle Hunter, second baseman Jeff Onstott, outfielder Sam Bean and utility man Ennis Coble. Earning honorable mention were catcher Chris O'Dowd and first baseman Jason Brooks.

From the Rockies to the Big Green
Dartmouth junior catcher Chris O'Dowd has had quite an exposure to the big leagues as his father, Dan O'Dowd, has been the general manager of the Colorado Rockies since September of 1999.

Two-Sport Talent
This season, the Big Green feature a two-sport athlete on their roster in freshman Bo Patterson. A wide receiver on the Dartmouth football team, Patterson worked his way into the starting lineup on the gridiron and finished his rookie campaign leading the team in receiving yards (301) and second in receptions (24) with a pair of touchdowns.

Schedules

Players Mentioned

Sam Bean

Jason Brooks

Ennis Coble

Ennis Coble

Kyle Hendricks

Kyle Hendricks

Mitch Horacek

Mitch Horacek

Kyle Hunter

Kyle Hunter

Michael Johnson

Chris O'Dowd

Chris O'Dowd

Jeff Onstott

Joe Sclafani

Joe Sclafani

Ryan Smith

Cole Sulser

Cole Sulser

Footer

Schedules

Completed Event: Baseball versus Cornell on April 27, 2025 , Win , 7, to, 4

Completed Event: Baseball at Merrimack College on April 30, 2025 , Loss , 5, to, 6

Cancelled Event: Baseball versus Stonehill

Completed Event: Baseball versus Yale on May 10, 2025 , Loss , 4, to, 18

Completed Event: Baseball versus Yale on May 11, 2025 , Loss , 0, to, 19

Completed Event: Baseball versus Yale on May 11, 2025 , Loss , 1, to, 10