Big Green Battle But Fall Short in Final Game of ILCS, 10-7

Sunday, May 10

New York, N.Y.

1:00 PM

Dartmouth College

21-22

Columbia

29-15

Dartmouth

Columbia

Big Green Battle But Fall Short in Final Game of ILCS, 10-7

5/10/2015 4:30:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

By: Dartmouth

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Columbia clubbed eight extra-base hits, including four home runs, to defeat the visiting Dartmouth Big Green in the third and decisive game of the Ivy League Championship Series on Sunday afternoon at Robertson Field at Satow Stadium, 10-7. The Lions (29-15) earn the Ivy League's automatic bid to the NCAA Regionals with the series victory, becoming the first team to win the conference crown in three consecutive years since Harvard in 1997-99.

For Dartmouth (21-22), the season ends in bittersweet fashion for a fifth-straight year with a loss in the ILCS, the last three of which have come at the hands of the Lions in New York.

Joey Falcone had two of the four long balls, driving in five runs with those blasts in the first two frames. Logan Boyher joined Falcone with three hits and had four RBIs, two coming on his second four-bagger of the year, while David Vandercook launched his fifth home run, a solo shot in the sixth for the final Columbia tally of the afternoon.

The Big Green had their share of fireworks, with sophomore Michael Ketchmark going 3-for-5 with a triple and three RBIs, and junior Joe Purritano smacking his third round-tripper of the season while collecting three RBIs on the day as well.

Neither starter stayed around for long as the bats ruled the day. Senior Louis Concato (1-6) surrendered Falcone's first homer in the bottom of the first, a two-run shot to left-center, and when Will Savage tripled and scored on a Boyher single to start the second, head coach Bob Whalen went to senior Chris England out of the bullpen. After a bunt single and a flyout, Falcone golfed a 1-0 pitch out of the park for a three-run shot, his league-leading 11th of the season.

The Lion lead was 6-1 at that point as Dartmouth managed to scratch out a run in the second on a Ketchmark RBI single. Down five, the Big Green did not get discouraged and knocked Columbia hurler Ty Wiest from the mound in the third. Purritano deposited a 2-0 fastball over the fence in right with one out for a quick run, and after freshman Kyle Holbrook singled for his seventh hit in the three-game series, junior Nick Ruppert reached on a throwing error. Ketchmark made Columbia pay for the miscue by hitting a ball that carried over the right fielder's head for a two-run triple, closing the gap to two runs at 6-4 and sending Wiest to the showers.

But Boyher belted his two-run shot in the bottom half to boost the Lions' lead back to four at 8-4. Again Dartmouth answered back in the fourth against reliever Ryan Marks when Purritano hit a sacrifice fly to score senior Bo Patterson, who started the stanza with a base hit.

In the fifth, the Green crept even closer when Patterson hit a squibber in front of the plate with runners at second and third. Marks tried to barehand the ball in an attempt to nab Ruppert trying to score, only to miss the ball completely, leaving everyone safe and making the score 8-6. Columbia summoned closer Harrison Egly into the game, and after notching the second out on a comebacker, he narrowly avoided having Dartmouth tie the score when freshman Dustin Shirley's screamer was stabbed by the first baseman for the third out.

The Lions reclaimed that solitary run when Savage and Boyher hit back-to-back doubles to start the bottom of the fifth, but freshman Patrick Peterson limited the damage to that one run by setting down the next three hitters in order.

Following Vandercook's bomb in the sixth, Dartmouth got to Egly for a run in the eighth on another Purritano sacrifice fly. But the Big Green, which left 10 men on base in the game, stranded two more runners to leave them with one inning to tally three runs.

In the ninth, Ruppert stroked a one-out double high off the tall fence in center, but Dartmouth could not manage anything more as Egly (3-1) sealed the victory. The right-hander hurled 4.2 innings while allowing just one unearned run on three hits to go with one strikeout.

All but two of Columbia's 10 runs scored on home runs, and that power helped the Lions overcome three errors that led to three unearned runs.

Notes: The Big Green had lost just once all season when scoring at least six runs ... Dartmouth's 5-6-7 hitters in the lineup (Holbrook, Ruppert and Ketchmark) combined to hit .485 (16-for-33) with nine runs and five RBIs in the ILCS … Columbia hit .340 as a team in the three games … the Big Green won 15 of their final 18 games of the season, including a 14-game winning streak, the third-longest in program history.