This Day in Dartmouth History: April 26
4/26/2020 2:00:00 PM | Baseball, Men's Golf, Men's Lacrosse, Athletics
April 26, 2008 — Men's Lacrosse upsets 10th-ranked Princeton on Senior Day
Going up against No. 10 Princeton on Senior Day at Scully-Fahey Field, Dartmouth pulled off the upset and handed the Tigers their first Ivy League loss of the season in an 11-9 victory.
Sophomore goalie Michael Novosel '10 was tested from the opening face off and certainly lived up to the challenge. Junior Jimmy Mullen '09 came into the game at 12:12 and took a shot from just inside the restraining line for the first goal of the game. Within 90 seconds, the Big Green had made it 3-0 and, after allowing the Tigers one of their own, Dartmouth took a 4-1 edge into the second.
By halftime the Big Green lead was boosted to four at 8-4, but the third quarter belonged to Princeton. The Tigers slowly started to close the gap until they tied the game at nine with just over 12 minutes remaining in the contest.
Junior Philip Killian '09 picked a great time to score his first of the season to put Dartmouth back on top. With two minutes to go, was able to get one back, but the marker was waved off on a crease violation. Mullen proceeded to put the icing on the cake with a goal at 1:42 for the game's final tally.
While the Tigers outshot the Big Green, 43-23, Novosel came through with an outstanding game, coming up with 16 saves.
April 26, 2009 — Peter Williamson '12 of Men's Golf wins playoff to win Ivy League title as a rookie
It took three playoff holes to decide the 2009 Ivy League Men's Golf individual champion, but freshman Peter Williamson '12 outlasted Princeton's Eric Salazar to become just the fourth Ivy League champion from Dartmouth.
Williamson began the tournament well by carding a 1-under 69 over the first round to finish the day tied for second, one stroke behind Columbia's Clark Granum. The second round was identical to the first for the rookie with another 69, pushing him into the lead a stroke ahead of Salazar and two ahead of Penn's Scott Williams while Granum fell back into a tie for fourth.
The final round proved to be a little more difficult as Williamson carded a 3-over 73 on the par-70, 6,559-yard course at Atlantic City Country Club in New Jersey. Salazar, Penn's Brett Redina and Yale's Tom McCarthy, meanwhile, all made a run at the freshman, but only Salazar could pull even to force a playoff as the other two finished one stroke off the pace. Williamson prevailed in the end to become the first Big Green Ivy champion in 14 years (Bryan Kim in 1995).
Dartmouth had a chance to win the team title as well, entering the final round in second place thanks to shooting even par in the second round (the low score of the tournament), just two strokes behind Penn. But Columbia charged to the lead and won the crown, beating out the Quakers by a mere stroke and the Big Green by six.
April 26, 2009 — Baseball clinches Rolfe Division title on final day of the season at Harvard
Dartmouth entered the final day of the 2009 season needing just one win at Harvard to clinch its second straight Rolfe Division title. That was only because the team was denied in the second game of a doubleheader the previous day in Hanover when the Crimson rallied for two in the ninth and two more in the 10th to steal a victory from the Big Green, which had knocked future big league left-hander Brent Suter from the box in the fifth.
Toeing the slab for Dartmouth was a rookie right-hander who just happened to be a future big league hurler himself, Kyle Hendricks '09, while Harvard sent Dan Zailskas to the mound. The Big Green took their frustrations from the previous day out on the right-hander right away, plating three runs in the top of the first as juniors Nick Santomauro '10 and Jim Wren '10 as well as senior Ray Allen '09 had RBIs. Santomauro drove in a run again in the second with a single, and an error on the play allowed Dartmouth's fifth run to score for a 5-0 lead.
Harvard threatened to make it a game with three runs in the third, but the Big Green answered right back with four in the top of the fourth, capped by Allen's three-run blast, one of his 10 home runs on the season. In the seventh, freshman Joe Sclafani '09 tripled home the final two Dartmouth runs and Hendricks completed the seven-inning contest for the 11-5 victory and the division title.
Santomauro went on to be named the Ivy League Player of the Year as he hit .372 with eight home runs and 40 RBIs and Sclafani was tabbed as the Rookie of the Year with a .339 average, a league-leading six triples and a .942 fielding percentage at shortstop. The division title was the second of eight consecutive won by the Big Green as well.
