Home Streak Ends, Selzer Powers Green to Twinbill Split

Sunday, April 8

Hanover, N.H.

12:00 PM

Dartmouth College

7-14, 3-4

Columbia

12-15, 5-2

Columbia

Dartmouth

Home Streak Ends, Selzer Powers Green to Twinbill Split

4/8/2012 6:20:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

By: Dartmouth

HANOVER, N.H. — The nation's longest home winning streak is over at 28 games.

But the Dartmouth (8-14, 4-4 Ivy) baseball team bounced back to start a new one in salvaging a split with Columbia (12-16, 5-3 Ivy) on Sunday afternoon with an 11-3 victory in the nightcap. Sophomore Dustin Selzer drove in seven runs while junior Michael Johnson struck out a career-high 10 batters to power the Big Green in the second game. In the opener, Lion pitcher David Speer took a no-hitter into the seventh and final frame before Dartmouth scored three times in the inning, leaving the tying run at third base as the 28-game home win streak did not go down without a fight in the 4-3 loss.

Selzer went 3-for-5 with two long home runs — the first a grand slam to give the Big Green the lead for good in the fifth — and a two-run double to provide more than enough offense for Johnson and senior reliever Max Langford. Freshman Thomas Roulis also had three hits among the 14 for Dartmouth in the game, but his most important at-bat saw him reach on an error.

The Big Green trailed, 3-2, in the fifth after Columbia catcher Mike Fischer snuck a fly ball just over the fence right down the left-field line for his first home run of the season, a two-run shot. In the bottom half, senior Joe Sclafani stroked a two-out single to bring Roulis to the plate. The rookie chopped a ball to the first baseman, who made a toss too difficult to handle for pitcher Stefan Olson covering for an error. With the game on the line, the Lions went for a lefty-on-left matchup, bringing Joey Gandolfo in to face Dartmouth designated hitter Ennis Coble. The strategy backfired when Coble drew a walk loading the bases and Selzer crushed a 1-0 pitch out of the park to deep left-center for a 6-3 lead.

Consecutive singles by freshman Matt Robinson and junior Chris O'Dowd to start the sixth set up a sacrifice fly off the bat of freshman Nick Lombardi and an RBI single by senior Jake Carlson. Selzer launched his second round-tripper of the game and the season leading off the seventh, then capped the Big Green scoring with a two-out, two-run double to the gap in left-center, plating Carlson and Roulis.

Johnson (2-1) struck out at least one batter in each of his six innings, fanning the side in the fourth. He is the first Dartmouth pitcher to punch out at least 10 in a game since Cole Sulser whiffed 13 almost a year ago to the day against Cornell on April 9, 2011.

The southpaw gave up the three runs on five hits and a pair of walks, throwing 109 pitches in his outing. Johnson was touched for a run in the third when Jon Eisen dumped a blooper into right field, scoring Aaron Silbar who had singled and stolen second with one out. After Sclafani tripled in a run and scored on a Roulis single for a 2-1 Big Green lead in the bottom half, Silbar singled with two down in the fifth, right before Fischer homered.

Langford took the mound to start the seventh with an 8-3 lead and retired nine of the 10 batters he faced to record his first career save.

Sclafani and Carlson each provided two hits and scored twice to bolster the Dartmouth offense. Silban had half of Columbia's six safeties.

In the opener, the first three innings took just 26 minutes in the battle of left-handers as Speer and Big Green junior Kyle Hunter retired the side in order in each stanza. Eisen got the first hit of the game, a double to start the fourth, as the Lions loaded the bases with nobody out. Yet Hunter was able to wriggle free without a run scoring thanks to a strikeout, a force at the plate on a comebacker and a routine grounder to short.

Hunter wasn't as fortunate in the fifth after yielding a lead-off single to Jordan Selena. Silbar sacrificed to send Selean to second, Fischer was thrown out trying to bunt for a hit, and Eisen walked then stole second. With Nick Crucet at the plate, Hunter made the pitch he wanted, inducing a slow chopper to third. But it went into no-man's land for an infield single and the game's first run. Dario Pizzano then boomed a double to the left-center gap to make it a 3-0 game.

Silbar provided an insurance run in the sixth that turned out to be very much needed, lacing a pitch to left-center with two down for his first triple of the year to score Alex Black, who had led off with a single.

The Big Green could simply not solve Speer in the first six innings. The only base runner they could muster came on a throwing error in the fourth. Another miscue starting the seventh — a wild pitch on a third strike — gave Dartmouth some life. Coble lined the first pitch he saw to left to break up the no-hit bid, then Selzer found the hole between short and third for an RBI single. Sophomore Jeff Keller duplicated Selzer's hit to cut the deficit to two runs at 4-2. After O'Dowd bunted the runners into scoring position, the Lions turned to David Spinosa out of the pen.

Spinosa got Lombardi to ground softly to short, scoring the third run and putting the tying run on third. But after issuing a walk to senior David Turnbull, the reliever retired Carlson on a high chopper to short for his third save of the year.

Speer (3-0) got the victory, allowing three runs on just three hits with five strikeouts. Hunter (0-3) was the tough-luck loser, yielding the four runs on six hits and a pair of walks with one strikeout.

Dartmouth, now 47-6 at Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park since 2009, completes its six-game homestand on Wednesday when Holy Cross (18-12) comes to town for a game at 3:30 p.m. Next up for Columbia is a road game at St. John's (18-13) on Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 p.m.

Notes: Dartmouth's last loss at home was just shy of two years ago, a 9-5 loss to Penn back on April 11, 2010 ... Sclafani's triple in the second game was not only the 18th of his career, extending the record he set yesterday, but also his 200th hit, making him the fifth Big Green player to reach the milestone ... Dartmouth finished the weekend in sole possession of first place in the Rolfe Division of the Ivy League, one game ahead of Brown, to where the Big Green travel next weekend for a crucial four-game series ... the Dartmouth record for RBIs in a game? Selzer was halfway there — Scott Shirrell drove in 14 runs against Harvard on May 4, 2002, also his sophomore season.