Baseball Back at Home For Three Games with Princeton

DARTMOUTH (13-13, 5-4) vs. PRINCETON (4-21, 2-7)
April 16-17, 2022 • Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park • Hanover, N.H.

Back at Home at Last
Only four teams in Division I have played fewer home games than Dartmouth thus far this season (Eastern Illinois, Niagara and North Dakota State, 0; St. Bonaventure, 2), and the Big Green have enjoyed great success at Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park, posting a .709 winning percentage since the facility was completed in 2009. Dartmouth would like nothing more than to improve that percentage with three games against Princeton here this weekend.

Overall Record vs. Princeton
• The Tigers have the advantage in the all-time series, going 100-91 against Dartmouth.
• The Big Green had won six straight, matching it longest streak of success against Princeton, until the Tigers won the final game at Rutgers in 2019.
• The last time Princeton came to town, Dartmouth swept the series, outscoring the visitors by a 36-6 margin. Overall, the Green are 10-3 against the Tigers at Biondi Park and 54-29 in Hanover.
• Big Green head coach Bob Whalen has a 32-40 record against the Tigers, while Princeton's Scott Bradley is 29-27 versus Dartmouth.
• The two teams first met on the diamond in 1880 with Princeton winning both contests, 2-0 and 9-4. The Tigers won 17 of the first 18 games.

Scouting the Tigers
• Princeton got off to a rough start to the season, losing its first 12 games, but last weekend the Tigers took two of three from Cornell to double their win total.
• The offense averages 5.6 runs per game while posting a .277/.360/.423 line with 28 home runs.
• Outfielder Nadir Lewis has been a handful for opposing pitchers, with a .398 average and a league-leading nine home runs.
• Matt Scannell has been Princeton's top hitter in Ivy play, however, with a slash line of .441/.537/.647, two homers and 10 RBIs.
• The pitching staff is seventh in the league with a 7.81 ERA, allowing opponents to hit .321 with 32 homers, the highest marks in the league.
• The Tigers have also committed the most errors in the league (43) and allowed the most stolen bases (52).

Last Time Against Princeton
Bad weather forced the series to move to Rutgers for the 2019 Ivy League opener for both teams, and Dartmouth won the first two games before dropping the finale. The Big Green bats pounded Princeton pitching in the opener in a 23-3 final as catcher Logan Adams exploded a career day with four hits including two home runs, four runs and six RBIs to lead the way. Michael Calamari also had four hits and drove in four as Dartmouth collected 21 hits in support of Cole O'Connor, who allowed just two runs over eight innings on the mound.

The offense mounted a ninth-inning comeback in game two, scoring five times in the ninth to overcome a 6-5 deficit, then the Green held off the Tigers for a 10-8 triumph. Ubaldo Lopez provided the go-ahead hit with a three-run double in the ninth, and Trevor Johnson popped a two-run homer to supply what turned out to be the winning runs. The comeback made a winner out of Jonah Jenkins, who threw two perfect innings of relief.

Princeton bit back in the third game, however, scoring three in the first en route to an 8-2 win. The Tigers's Andrew Gnazzo struck out 11 in eight frames to pick up the win, Nadir Lewis had three hits and Max West drove in four.

Probable Starting Pitchers
• Senior RHP Nathan Skinner (3-2, 4.66) will open the series again for the Big Green as he has every Ivy weekend. The league leader in fewest walks per nine innings (1.72) picked up his third win at Yale last weekend, tossing 7.0 innings while giving up four runs on eight hits and fanning five. Princeton will counter with staff ace RHP Jackson Emus (1-3, 4.39), who picked up his first win last week by striking out 10 in six innings in a 12-3 win over Cornell.
• Per usual, senior LHP Trystan Sarcone (3-2, 4.88) will get the ball. Although he took the loss at Yale, allowing five runs (two earned) over five innings, he has posted a 3.00 ERA over his last five starts. He will go up against another southpaw in Tom Chmielewski (1-5, 9.82) who averages fewer than five innings per start and has allowed at least five runs in each of his last five outings.
• Senior RHP Justin Murray (2-3, 8.72) has been much improved since Ivy play began with a 3.50 ERA in his three starts, striking out 19 and walking just five in 18.0 innings of work. His opponent on the mound in the finale will be RHP Andrew D'Alessio (1-4, 6.75) who defeated Cornell last week despite yielding six runs in his five-inning start.

What's Up Next
Dartmouth will wrap up its four-game home stand with a non-conference tilt against Siena (8-23) before traveling to Cornell next weekend for a three-game series against the Big Red.

Big Beats Great in First-Ever Meeting
Despite being just three hours apart, Dartmouth had never played Albany in a baseball game before April 13. Playing on the road, the Big Green defeated the Great Danes, 12-5, thanks to a four-run second and a five-run ninth to put the game out of reach. Another first in the game was sophomore Devin Milberg being credited with his first collegiate victory after tossing a scoreless fifth inning.

Cox Rocks
Prior to the end of the spring trip, sophomore Tyler Cox was faring quite well at the plate with a solid .333 average while starting all but one game at shortstop. But since returning to the Northeast, he has been practically unstoppable, hitting a whopping .531 (26-for-49) while scoring 13 runs and driving in 17. He leads the Ivy League with a .425 average (10th nationally) and 45 hits, plus leads the team with 28 RBIs even though he has hit first or second in the lineup all season. Cox also has 14 multi-hit games, including four hits three times in the last six contests.

Ivy-Leading ERA
Dartmouth has pitched quite well against its Ancient Eight brethren, posting a team ERA of 3.35, nearly two full runs better than any other team in the conference (Penn is at 5.20), while holding opponents to a league-low .234 average.

Double the Action, Double the Fun
Senior Justin Murray is the first true two-way player for Dartmouth in over 20 years, and he is finding his stride both at the plate and on the mound. At Albany, he stroked three doubles in a game for the second time this season, boosting his season total to 13, which leads the Ivy League and puts him fourth nationally in doubles per game (0.54). And on the mound, he has won two of his three Ivy starts, most recently beating Yale by hurling a career-long 7.2 innings in an 11-4 win while also going 3-for-6 at the plate to help his own cause.

Series Win Over Bulldogs
Dartmouth had not won a series against Yale since 2015, but that changed on April 9-10 as the Big Green took two of the three games in New Haven, winning by lopsided scores of 14-4 and 11-4. The weekend ended with Dartmouth outscoring the Bulldogs by a 26-13 margin with senior Kade Kretzschmar leading the offense with six hits, including three doubles and a triple. The pitching staff recorded a 3.46 ERA, but the bullpen was especially good, allowing just one hit and one walk while striking out nine in 6.1 innings of work.

Five-Run First
Having split the first two games with Yale, Dartmouth was looking to get out to an early lead, and did it ever, scoring five runs in the top of the first en route to an 11-4 victory to clinch the series. Not only was it the most runs in the first inning for the Big Green this season, but the most in nearly 10 years. Oddly enough, Dartmouth scored exactly five runs in the first inning four times in a 16-day span in 2012 but had not done it since.

14-Run Outburst
The Big Green took the series opener at Yale by tallying 14 runs to defeat their host by 10, 14-4. Dartmouth had not scored that many runs against the Bulldogs since a 22-10 slugfest back in 2015, the last time the Green won a series from Yale (a four-game sweep as a matter of fact). Oddest box score line from this game came courtesy of Bryce Daniel who went 0-for-1 at the plate but scored four times thanks to two walks and two hit by pitches. Both Tyler Cox and Justin Murray hit their first career home runs in the game as well, with Cox's long ball being the first three-run homer of the season for Dartmouth. Of the other 16 home runs hit by the Green this season, five have been two-run blasts and the other 11 solo shots, including Murray's in this contest.

Schedules