Rare Midweek Doubleheader at UMass Lowell Today

Rare Mid-Week Doubleheader
For the first time in 10 years, Dartmouth is playing a mid-week, non-conference doubleheader after the start of Ivy play with this twinbill at UMass Lowell on Tuesday afternoon. The Big Green enter the two games having won their last four, and six of their past eight.

Dartmouth (10-19) at
UMass Lowell (7-16)
LeLacheur Park, Lowell, Mass.

Tuesday, April 14, 3 p.m. DH
Video: AmericaEast.tv • Live Stats
Probable Game 1: RHP Sam Fichthorn (0-1, 5.62) vs. RHP Nick Kuzia (1-2, 10.20)
Game 2: RHP Chris England (0-2, 4.76) vs. LHP Brendan Shea (0-2, 8.38)

Last Week in Review
•   In Dartmouth's last non-conference contest, Chris England was terrific on the mound, allowing just one earned run over 6.1 innings, but the bats managed just a pair of infield hits in a 2-0 loss to Boston College at Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park.
•   After being shut out three times in their previous five games, the Big Green came to life in their first-ever four-game sweep at Yale Field.
•   The first showdown with the Bulldogs took an extra inning to decide as Kyle Holbrook provided the winning run in the eighth on a sacrifice fly. Mike Concato went the distance for the win and Michael Ketchmark blasted a two-run bomb.
•   The bats exploded in the second game, a 22-10 slugfest. Joe Purritano went 2-for-3 with three walks, a double, homer and five RBIs while Matt Parisi tied a school record with four doubles and Nick Ruppert scored four runs.
•   Duncan Robinson was the story of the third game, twirling a three-hit shutout without a walk while striking out seven. Ben Socher homered and Nick Lombardi drove in a pair in support of the right-hander in a 7-0 blanking of the Bulldogs.
•   The series began as it ended, with a 3-2 nail-biter. Louis Concato surrendered one run over seven stanzas and Dustin Shirley twice singled, stole second and scored to serve as the offensive catalyst. Patrick Peterson earned the save by fanning the final hitter with the tying run on second base.

Last Time Against the RiverHawks
It has been 16 years since these two teams met on the diamond, with UMass Lowell getting the better of the Big Green, 13-3. Lenny Carter blasted a three-run homer in the first, and Dave Harne stroke a two-run double during a five-run third as the RiverHawks jumped out to a 9-0 lead after three innings. Dartmouth scored twice in the sixth on an RBI triple off the bat of Joe Rockers, who then scored on a wild pitch. The final Big Green run came home in the ninth on a Brian Hood base hit (his only knock of his career), scoring Matt Klentak who had led off the inning with a single.

Overall Record vs. UMass Lowell
•   The RiverHawks have a decided advantage in the series that dates back to 1934 (an 8-0 Dartmouth win), with a 7-3 record against the Big Green.
•   Seven of those 10 games have come during the tenure of head coach Bob Whalen, who is 2-5 against UMass Lowell, with all seven games being played in the 1990s.
•   The last Dartmouth win in the series came in 1997, a 16-13 triumph at LeLacheur Park.

Scouting the RiverHawks
•   Weather has wreaked havoc on most teams in the Northeast, but UMass Lowell has been hit exceptionally hard having played just 23 games, including an America East doubleheader against Binghamton at Cornell's Hoy Field.
•   As a team, the RiverHawks are hitting .273 and averaging just under five runs a game. Three full-time regulars are over .320, led by Danny Mendick at .352 with 11 doubles and 16 RBIs.
•   This is an aggressive team on the bases with nearly two steals per game (45 in 23 games), led by Ian Strom (10-12).
•   The pitching staff has posted an ERA just over six, but Andrew Ryan has a 2.81 ERA as a swing man (three starts, three relief appearances). Control has been an issue, however, with 113 walks in 188.1 innings to go with only 77 strikeouts (the lowest rate among Division I teams at 3.7 per nine).
•   In the field, UMass Lowell has a .966 fielding percentage having committed 29 errors in its 23 games, but thrown out just four of 24 would-be base stealers.

Probable Starting Pitchers
•   In the first of the two seven-inning games, Dartmouth will be throwing a right-hander at the River Hawks. Which right-hander is anyone's guess, but perhaps freshman Sam Fichthorn (0-1, 5.62) will get the nod for the second time this season against UMass Lowell RHP Nick Kuzia (1-2, 10.20), who likewise has started just once thus far in 2015.
•   Game two will likely feature senior RHP Chris England (0-2, 4.76), coming off a terrific outing against Boston College in which he allowed just one earned run over 6.1 innings, against LHP Brendan Shea (0-2, 8.38).

What's Up Next
Dartmouth returns home this weekend to host Brown in a key four-game Ivy League series with noon doubleheaders on Saturday and Sunday. The Big Green have won 11 of the 12 games at Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park against the Bears since the renovation in 2009.

Keep Up with the Action
Thanks to AmericaEast.tv, the doubleheader at UMass Lowell will be streamed live for fans to watch for free. Live stats will also be available for the stat geeks like me to keep up with every play. Visit GoRiverHawks.com for more information.

Four-Game Sweep at Yale
On April 11-12, Dartmouth swept a four-game series at Yale for the first time ever, winning the four contests by a combined score of 35-14. The current format of playing four games at either Brown or Yale every year was instituted in 1993, meaning this was the 12th time the Big Green had played a four-game series at Yale Field.

Robinson Tosses First Shutout
Junior Duncan Robinson became the first Big Green pitcher to throw a complete-game shutout this year, the first of his career. The right-hander stymied the Yale bats on April 12, holding them to three hits over the seven-inning contest while striking out seven. He also extended his streak of innings without issuing a free pass to 24.2. But two other Ivy pitchers also threw three-hit shutouts, leaving the one that threw against the best offense (Cornell's Kellen Urbon) as the league's weekly award winner.

Offense Explodes for 22 Runs
The Dartmouth offense had been in a bit of a slumber before the second game of the twinbill on April 11 at Yale, having gone 26 games without scoring more than eight runs, including a total of six runs in the previous four contests. That changed against the Bulldogs as the Big Green tallied 22 runs, their most since a 23-9 win over Fairleigh Dickinson on St. Patrick's Day in 2004. Dartmouth rapped out 17 hits to match a season high, and the seven-run eighth inning was its biggest output since a nine-run sixth at Harvard last year.

Parisi Sets Ivy Record with Four Doubles
Senior Matt Parisi doubled up on doubling his double total in one game as he swatted four two-baggers against Yale in the 22-10 victory on April 11. Not only is he the third Big Green batter to collect four in one game ever (Al Fusonie in 1926, J.J. Curren in 1943), he also broke the record of three in a league game (which he shared already). Parisi finished the game 4-for-6 while matching a personal high with three runs and setting another with three RBIs.

Concato Brothers Earn Victories
Entering the Yale weekend, the Concato brothers, Louis and Mike, had just one victory between them in nine total starts. But both managed to earn a 3-2 win to bookend the series. First, Mike hurled eight innings of two-run ball as Dartmouth scored in the extra eighth inning to begin the weekend. Then Louis tossed a season-high seven stanzas and allowed just one run on six hits while matching a career high with six strikeouts as the Big Green bullpen held off the Bulldogs to complete the sweep.

Quality Starts Keep Coming
Dartmouth came into the series at Yale having had seven straight quality starts (six or more innings, three or fewer earned runs) from its rotation. The streak ended at eight after Mike Concato's strong performance, but picked right back up thanks to Duncan Robinson and Louis Concato. On the season the staff has provided 14 QS in 29 games, and that doesn't include a pair of starts that consisted of five scoreless innings.

Swarm of Sacrifice Flies
After the first game at Yale, Dartmouth had hit just three sacrifice flies all season, which spanned 26 games at that point, and all three came off the bat of freshman Kyle Holbrook. It took just one more game for the Big Green to collect four more, all by different players, in the 22-10 win. OK, really not interesting any more, not that it was originally.

Pitching, Defense Shining of Late
Over the last 14 games, Dartmouth has gone 9-5 thanks to a pitching staff that has posted a 3.02 ERA and a defense that has committed just six errors for a sparkling .988 fielding percentage. Only twice in those 14 games have the Big Green allowed even five runs, both of which were victories. As a result, the staff ERA has dropped from 6.64 to 4.88 and the team fielding is back on top of the Ivy League (where it has been the last three years) at .975.

Whalen Reaches 500 Ivy Games
Dartmouth head coach Bob Whalen presided over his 500th Ivy League game with the Big Green in the final game against Yale on April 12, a 3-2 victory. In those 500 games he boasts a record of 284-216, a .568 winning percentage to go with 10 Rolfe Division titles and two Ivy League crowns.

Schedules