Spring Break in Florida for Seven Games

Thursday, March 14

Kissimmee, Fla. / Osceola County Stadium

6:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Wayne State University

Photo by: Bobbie Modica

3/13/2019 4:43:00 PM | Baseball

Spring Break Notes Live Stats at USF USF Audio Broadcast

Dartmouth will play Wayne State, three against USF and three more against Bradley while in the Sunshine State

By: Rick Bender

DARTMOUTH (4-4)
on SPRING BREAK
Thursday-Thursday, March 14-21, 2019
vs. Wayne State (13-3) at Osceola County Stadium, Kissimmee, Fla. ~ at USF (7-7), Tampa, Fla.
vs. Bradley (7-5) at Osceola County Stadium, Kissimmee, Fla./Chain of Lakes Park, Winter Haven, Fla.

Florida Fling
Dartmouth's third and final trip to the southern United States is a seven-game, eight-day affair against three teams, beginning with a strong Division II team in Wayne State, followed by three at USF and three more versus Bradley.

Last Games in Review
• By the time the first pitch is thrown against Wayne State, it will have been 11 days between games for Dartmouth.
• The Big Green emerged victorious at the Army Baseball Classic, held at the USA Baseball Training Complex from March 1-3, going 3-1 with two wins over Fairleigh Dickinson and another against Saint Joseph's.
• The lone defeat came in the first game that barely qualified as a game. Tulane defeated Dartmouth, 5-1, and was still batting in the bottom of the fifth when the rain became too much.
• A 6-1, seven-inning victory over FDU ended a four-game Big Green losing streak as rookie right-hander Nathan Skinner earned his first collegiate victory thanks to 4.1 innings of one-run ball. Skinner was later chosen as the Ivy League Rookie of the Week.
• Steffen Torgersen led the offense in the 6-1 win with a pair of doubles, two runs and an RBI.
• Dartmouth pitchers did not allow an earned run in the second game of the twinbill with the Knights, but needed 10 innings to earn a 4-3 victory.
• Trevor Johnson was down to the Big Green's last strike when he delivered a two-run single in the ninth to knot the score at three, and freshman Kade Kretzschmar hit the game-winning sacrifice fly in the 10th.
• Lefty Max Hunter picked up his first college win having surrendered just an unearned run over the last three innings with a career-high six strikeouts.
• In the final game, Matt Feinstein belted his first homer of the season and drove in two runs to lift the Big Green to a 4-2 victory over the Hawks.
• A pair of pitchers making just their second collegiate appearance — freshman Trystan Sarcone and sophomore Jonah Jenkins — held St. Joe's to two runs (one earned) on five hits while fanning nine. Jenkins earned his first college win with five stellar innings of relief (1 H, 0 ER, 5 K).

Overall Record vs. Opponents
• This is the first meeting on the diamond between Dartmouth and Wayne State.
• The Big Green played both of the other two opponents most recently in 2016. Dartmouth is 3-1 all-time against Bradley with the lone loss coming in that 2016 meeting, 7-2.
• The Bulls, on the other hand have won four of the five encounters with the Big Green. But that one Dartmouth win came in 2016, a 1-0, four-hit gem by Duncan Robinson, now in spring training camp with the Chicago Cubs.

Scouting Wayne State
• The Warriors have won four in a row, two of which came against top-15 teams in Division II — No. 15 Augustana (4-2 in 10 innings) and No. 10 West Chester (7-2).
• The team is batting .276/.369/.386 with two players doing excessive damage in Jacob Finkbeiner (.517/.603/.741 with 11 extra-base hits) and Michael McLean (.414/.493/.603 with two of the team's three home runs).
• Wayne State's staff ERA is a sparkling 2.98 with 152 strikeouts in 136 innings led by staff ace Hunter Brown (2-0, 2.57, 44 K in 28.0 IP).
• Defensively, the Warriors have committed one error per game (.977) and caught 40 percent of base stealers.

Scouting USF
• Since sweeping a three-game series from Western Michigan, the Bulls have lost three of four, including two of three to Liberty and a one-run defeat on Tuesday against Jacksonville (playing Wednesday night at Bethune-Cookman).
• USF is averaging about five runs a game with a slash line of .252/.364/.405.
• Joe Genord has four of the team's 15 four-baggers with an OPS of 1.120, and three others have an OPS right around .933, including Jordan Santos thanks to a .517 OBP.
• Bulls pitchers sport a combined 4.24 ERA while limiting opposing hitters to a .233 average and striking out more than one batter per nine IP.
• The gloves have hurt USF a bit with 22 errors in 14 games (.956), but the Bulls have turned nine DPs and thrown out two of 13 base stealers.

Scouting Bradley
• Like Dartmouth, the Braves played a series against UTSA but won two of three, then dropped two of three last weekend at UNLV.
• In nine of their first 12 games, neither team scored more than five runs.
• Bradley is hitting .242/.319/.341 as a team with Luke Shadid (.368/.419/.526, 2 HR) and Dan Bolt (.326/.408/.535, 2 HR) pacing the squad.
• The staff ERA is slightly better than USF's at 2.94 with two strong starting pitchers and a pair of stellar relievers in Cole Cook (2-0, 0.98, 16 K in 18.1 IP) and Jed Moscot (1-0, 1.88, 1 save, .167 BA against).
• In the field, the Braves have been solid with 14 errors in 12 games (.971) but have gunned down just four of 22 base stealers.

Probable Starting Pitchers
• For those that read my notes before I updated this section, I was right on three of the starters, but was way off on the order. The Wayne State game will be started by junior RHP Tyler Fagler (0-0, 0.00) on the mound. He made his season debut two weeks ago with three shutout innings against FDU and my guess is that he will go about five innings. I'll guess RHP Tim Waldrop (2-0, 2.45) will get the nod for the Warriors after throwing six shutout innings last Friday against Walsh University.
• Freshman RHP Justin Murray (0-1, 6.75) will open the USF series. After getting roughed up in his first start, the rookie struck out six in four innings of relief against Fairleigh Dickinson, yielding just two unearned runs. The Bulls will have RHP Collin Sullivan (1-0, 4.15) ready to go with his 29 strikeouts in 21.2 innings.
• Game two will feature senior RHP Cole O'Connor (1-1, 6.00). O'Connor pitched in terrible weather in his last outing, giving up three runs in the final frame that couldn't even be completed due to the rain and mud. For USF, expect RHP Alec Wisely (1-2, 3.80), who is coming off his first win of the year against Liberty, hurling 7.0 innings and allowing one earned run.
• The series finale will feature freshman RHP Nathan Skinner (1-1, 5.79) hurling the ol' apple. The rookie threw four shutout innings before allowing one in the fifth to pick up his first college win last time out. The Bulls will probably send another right-hander in Baron Stuart (1-0, 6.30) to the mound, though he has had control issues with 12 BB in 10.0 IP.
• Don't even bother asking about the Bradley series. I have no idea about that.

What's Up Next
The Big Green won't return directly from Florida, but rather stop off in Princeton for the Ivy League opening series against the Tigers. The two teams will play a doubleheader on Saturday, March 23 starting at 11:30 a.m. before finishing the three-game set on Sunday at noon. These will be the earliest conference games ever for Dartmouth.

Ivy League Rookies of the Week
After two weeks of the 2019 season, Dartmouth boasted two different winners of the Ivy League Rookie of the Week award. First up was freshman LHP Trystan Sarcone, who twirled three scoreless innings of relief in his collegiate debut against UTSA on Feb. 23, fanning four in the process. A week later, rookie RHP Nathan Skinner earned his first collegiate victory in his second start, tossing 4.1 innings of one-run ball with five punchouts in a seven-inning, 6-1 triumph over Fairleigh Dickinson. Dartmouth has now had at least one player be named Rookie of the Week in each of the last 14 seasons; no other Ivy team has a current streak longer than five years.

Army Baseball Classic Champs
With three victories in four games at the Army Baseball Classic at the USA Baseball Training Complex in Cary, N.C., Dartmouth had the best record of any of the five competing teams. While not technically a tournament, we'll say it was the Big Green's first tournament victory since winning the Dairy Queen Classic hosted by Minnesota in 2013.

Feinstein Four-Bagger
Dartmouth senior co-captain Matt Feinstein helped get the Big Green offense going against Saint Joseph's on March 3, tying the game in the second inning with a solo home run, his first of the year and third of his career. It was just the second four-bagger for Dartmouth this year, one year after swatting 26 as a team, its most in seven years.

Jenkins Jams Up St. Joes
Sophomore RHP Jonah Jenkins missed his entire freshman campaign due to an injury, so what his contribution to the team would be this season was very much an unknown. If his performance against Saint Joseph's on March 3 is any indication, he could play a big part on the mound. In his second career outing, Jenkins handcuffed Hawks for five frames, yielding just one hit and one unearned run, walking two and strking out five.

Torgersen Teeing Off
Senior Steffen Torgersen has picked up the 2019 season right where he left off last year. Over the last 11 games of the 2018 campaign, Torgersen was 17-of-40 (.425) at the plate with four doubles and a homer. Okay, so his .333 average isn't quite the same, but it does lead Dartmouth after eight games, as do his three doubles and one triple. And in his last three contests, he is 5-for-9 with those three doubles while reaching base eight times and scoring four runs.

Johnson Lights Up Knights
With Dartmouth down two runs in the ninth in the second game of a doubleheader with Fairleigh Dickinson with two outs and two strikes on Trevor Johnson, the game came to an abrupt halt when the home plate umpire had to admonish a Knight for using a phone flashlight to distract Johnson from the dugout. Johnson shrugged off the incident and proceeded to deliver a two-run single to tie the game at three. In the 10th, freshman Kade Kretzschmar came through with a sacrifice fly to score the winning run in the 4-3 victory.

Striking Out Six
The Big Green got some terrific pitching performances in that 4-3, 10-inning victory over Fairleigh Dickinson. First, Tyler Fagler made his season debut and held the Knight scoreless for three innings on one hit. Although both relievers were touched for runs, all were unearned. Freshman Justin Murray surrendered two but struck out six — the most by a Dartmouth pitcher this young season — and sophomore Max Hunter then matched that total of whiffs in just three frames to earn his first career victory.

Not Settling for Spares
Well, this isn't bowling, but if there is one thing the Big Green pitching staff does, it is throw strikes. For the past decade, the staff has been one of the stingiest in the country in terms of issuing free passes, and this season is no different. In both 2009 and 2010, the Big Green hurlers walked fewer batters per nine innings than any other Division I team. In each of the next three years, they ranked among the top 15, placing third in 2011 at 2.24 behind only Florida (1.82) and Dayton (2.18), eighth in 2012 at 2.33, and 13th in 2013 at 2.52. After two years in the top 50 at fewer than three per game, the Big Green were back near the top in 2016 (11th, 2.66), 2017 (9th, 2.63) and last year (6th, 2.75). Even with freshmen throwing about 44 percent of the innings, Dartmouth currently ranks 30th (3.08).