Rolfe Division Showdown at Brown This Weekend

The Games: Dartmouth (9-14, 4-4) at Brown (6-21, 3-5)
Location: Murray Stadium (1,000), Providence, R.I.
First pitch: Noon doubleheader Saturday, April 14; noon doubleheader Sunday April 15
Series Record vs. Brown: Big Green lead, 129-102-1
Live Stats
Complete Game Notes

Key Ivy Showdown with Brown
Dartmouth enters its four-game series at Brown this weekend with a one-game lead over the Bears and two-game edge over Harvard in the Rolfe Division standings of the Ivy League. Since opening the season winning two of just 12 games during road trips to nationally ranked LSU and the state of California, the Big Green have gone 7-4 while winning five of their past six contests.

Last Week in Review
•   Dartmouth took three of four last weekend, sweeping Penn in a two-game series before splitting a twinbill with Columbia. The 4-3 loss in the opener to the Lions ended the Big Green's 28-game home win streak, the longest in the nation at that point.
•   Senior Joe Sclafani was named the Ivy League Player of the Week for the third time in his career, hitting .476 (10-for-21) with three doubles, two triples, a home run, seven runs and six RBIs. His first triple broke the Dartmouth career record, and his second not only tied the Ivy career record, but also made him the fifth player in Big Green history to register 200 hits.
•   A 4-2 win over Holy Cross on Wednesday kept a different streak alive, however, as Dartmouth has won all 17 games against non-Ivy opponents since Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park was renovated before the 2009 campaign.
•   Sophomore Jeff Keller provided much of the offense in the win over the Crusaders, going 3-for-4 with a solo homer and the game-winning hit in the seventh inning after classmate Dustin Selzer tied the game with his first career triple.

Last Time Against the Bears
The Big Green swept the four-game series in Hanover against Brown last year to move into a tie for first in the Rolfe Division standings with Yale. In the opener, Dartmouth overcame a 3-2 deficit in the fifth with five runs as Sam Bean tripled home the tying run and Jason Brooks broke the tie with a two-run double in a 7-3 win. The Big Green again scored five runs, this time in the first inning of game two, as they cruised to an 11-3 victory by amassing 16 hits, four by Jeff Onstott. Kyle Hendricks took a 1-0 shutout bid into the final frame of game three, but the Bears got a clutch two-out hit to tie the game. It turned out not to matter as Onstott doubled home Brooks from first in the bottom half for the 2-1 victory triumph. Dartmouth finished the sweep by pulling out to a 7-0 lead after three innings with Ryan Smith tossing three shutout innings for the save in an 11-4 win.

Overall Record vs. Brown
•   Dartmouth has played the Bears 232 times since the first meeting in 1871, with the Big Green having the edge, 129-102-1.
•   The Big Green have won the season series each of the past four years, winning three of four in each of 2008-10 before sweeping the series last year.
•   Two years ago in Providence, rain caused the games to stretch until Wednesday. After splitting a twinbill on Saturday, Dartmouth returned to Hanover before making the trek back to Brown to play single games on Tuesday and Wednesday.
•   In the divisional era (since 1993), Dartmouth has been quite successful on Brown's home field, going 27-15 and gaining at least a split on all but three occasions. Since the Bears started playing at the site in 1959, the Big Green are 45-24 there.
•   The first game between the two clubs came back in 1871, a 41-17 victory for Brown.

Scouting the Bears
•   Don't be surprised to see some high-scoring results from the weekend. Brown is a solid offensive team with seven regulars hitting over .300 while scoring 5.7 runs a game. But the Bears also feature a pitching staff with a whopping 8.30 ERA and more walks than strikeouts.
•   Brown did pull off an upset of Connecticut on Wednesday, scoring the winning run of the 8-7 victory in the bottom of the ninth.
•   Cody Slaughter leads the team with a .356 average, but J.J. Franco has come on strong in the Ivy games, batting .464 in the eight games so far.
•   Veteran Mike DiBiase has struggled this year, hitting just .214, but he along with the appropriately named Wes Van Boom and Will Marcal supply most of the power with 10 of Brown's 13 homers.
•   Rookie right-hander Taylor Wright has been one of the few bright spots on the mound for the Bears with a 2.93 ERA — mostly in relief. Only one other hurler (Heath Mayo) sports an ERA south of 6.50.
•   The Bears have a .965 fielding percentage on the season, but 12 errors in eight Ivy games to date. Van Boom behind the plate has gunned down 17-of-56 base stealers (30.4 percent).

Probable Starting Pitchers
•   Dartmouth will stick with its quartet of left-handers, in the same order as last weekend beginning with sophomore LHP Mitch Horacek (2-2, 5.06). He went the distance against Penn to earn a 6-3 victory, yielding two earned runs in the seven-inning game. He will be followed by freshman LHP Adam Frank (3-1, 4.74) who has the lowest opponent batting average against him in the league at .232, and a miniscule .128 in his two Ivy starts. On Sunday, junior LHP Kyle Hunter (0-3, 8.69) takes the mound after looking more like his old self against Columbia, but still suffered the loss, 4-3, in a complete-game effort. Closing out the series will be junior LHP Michael Johnson (2-1, 4.45) who struck out a career-high 10 batters in an 11-3 win over the Lions.
•   The Bears are expected to go right-handed on Saturday, with Heath Mayo (2-0, 5.24) starting game one with Anthony Galan (1-3, 8.60) going in game two. Mayo had control issues last weekend, walking five and hitting three batters in 4.1 innings in a loss to Cornell, while Galan was rocked for 15 hits and 10 runs in six innings as the Big Red completed the sweep. Sunday's twinbill will have a pair of southpaws take the hill for Brown, beginning with rookie Will Marcal (0-4, 10.06) and ending with senior Mark Gormley (1-2, 10.80). While those ERAs aren't pretty, Marcal has struck out 19 in 17 innings, and Gormley was dominant against Princeton last weekend, tossing seven shutout innings.

What's Up Next
The Big Green play one non-conference game on the road during the week, at Hartford on Wednesday at 3 p.m., before returning to Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park to host Yale for a four-game league series. All four games will be streamed live — audio and video — on the official website of Dartmouth athletics, DartmouthSports.com.

Another Streak Still Alive
Dartmouth may not have the nation's longest home winning streak any more after suffering a 4-3 loss to Columbia on April 8, but the Big Green extended its dominance over non-conference opponents at Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park with a 4-2 win over Holy Cross on April 11. Since the team began playing at the renovated park in 2009, Dartmouth has not lost a single game to a team outside of the Ivy League, spanning 17 games.

Keller Killing It at the Plate
Sophomore Jeff Keller didn't let an early-season ankle injury slow him down, other than missing six games. The outfielder supplied half of the Big Green's hits against Holy Cross, going 3-for-4 with a solo homer and the game-winning single in the seventh of the 4-2 victory. Since fully recovering from his injury, Keller is hitting .560 (14-of-25) with three doubles, a home run, three walks and six RBIs over seven games.

Strikeouts Are Fascist
The Dartmouth pitching staff and defense proved that strikeouts, while helpful, are not a necessity for winning baseball when the Big Green hurlers did not record a single punchout in a 4-2 defeat of Holy Cross on April 11. Granted, the one time this has occurred in each of the past two years, Dartmouth ended up on the wrong end of the score, but don't let it kill this narrative …

East Coast Bias
•   Since returning from California, the pitching staff has been terrific, posting a 3.27 team ERA over the 11 games with 63 strikeouts in 88.0 innings.
•   Freshman Adam Frank is 3-0 in his three starts with a 1.84 ERA, holding the opposition to a paltry .120 batting average.
•   Out of the bullpen, the relievers have a 1.75 ERA, and senior Max Langford has allowed one run in 9.1 innings with 11 strikeouts. He picked up his first career save on April 8, tossing three innings of one-hit ball against Columbia, then earned a win against Holy Cross on April 11.
•   At the plate, three hitters boast an average over .380, with Jeff Keller leading the way at .452. Ennis Coble is hitting .389 and Joe Sclafani .381.

Ivy Player of the Week
For the third time in his career, shortstop Joe Sclafani was named the Ivy League Player of the Week after hitting .476 (10-for-21) with three doubles, two triples, a home run, seven runs and six RBIs in five games during the week of April 2-8. He nearly became the second Big Green player to hit for the cycle in as many games when he went 3-for-4 with three runs and three RBIs in a 6-3 win over Penn, coming up a double short of the feat.

Schedules