Softball Looks to Keep Pace in Ivy League Standings

DARTMOUTH (12-20, 6-3) vs. COLUMBIA (11-21, 7-8)
April 23-24, 2022 • Dartmouth Softball Park • Hanover, N.H.

We're Going Streaking!
Dartmouth is in the midst of a seven-game winning streak entering the weekend, its longest such streak since winning the last seven games of the regular season in 2018 to propel the Big Green into the Ivy League Championship Series. But the team has not played in two weeks due to the cancellation of a doubleheader with Merrimack on April 13 and the postponement of last weekend's series at Penn, which has been rescheduled for this coming Tuesday and Wednesday.

Columbia is coming off a series victory at Brown to improve to 7-8 in league play and take over sole possession of fourth place while the Big Green sit in third. Two of the three games were decided by one run, the other by two, and Lion pitchers have allowed just 11 runs over the last six games with a pair of shutouts.

Overall Record vs. Columbia
• Dartmouth has the edge in the series with the Lions with a 27-19 record (since Columbia became a varsity program in 2000).
• Columbia has had more success recently, however, sweeping the series in 2019 and winning six of the last eight.
• The home team has won all but one game since the start of the 2016 campaign.
• The longest winning streak for either team is 10 games for the Big Green between 2007-11.
• Since Dartmouth Softball Park opened in 2012, Dartmouth is 6-3 against Columbia at the venue.
• In Hanover, the Big Green are 15-6 against the Lions.

Last Time Against the Lions
The three games in New York did not go well for the Big Green with the opener setting the tone as Columbia pulled out a 5-4 victory thanks to a three-run sixth. Tessa Grossman had given Dartmouth a 4-1 lead in the fourth with a three-run blast, but the lead and game were lost late.

Game two got away from the Green as a 2-1 game in the fifth turned into a shortened 9-1 defeat that ended on a three-run homer off the bat of the Lions' Abby Stuart in the bottom of the sixth. Even though Dartmouth only struck out once, it could only scratch out three hits.

Dartmouth was unable to salvage a win as Columbia's Maria Pagane went 3-for-3 with four RBIs to lead the Lions to a 6-4 victory. The Big Green closed the gap to one in the fifth on an RBI single by Billie McFadyen and a two-run single by Morgan Martinelli, but that was as close as they would get.

Scouting Columbia
• Columbia has won three of its five Ivy League series but suffered a sweep at the hands of Harvard back on April 2-3.
• As a team the Lions are batting .272 in 15 league games with 15 home runs while averaging 4.4 runs, fourth in the Ancient Eight.
• First baseman Abby Stuart on the season is hitting .380 with seven home runs to lead the squad, while Bubba Gleaves has been the catalyst with 20 walks and a .431 on-base percentage.
• The Lions have a solid one-two combination on the mound in Jordan Hill (6-8, 3.11 ERA) and Raquel Reyes (3-4, 3.73), the latter of whom threw a no-hitter last week.
• Overall, the staff has a 3.83 ERA, striking out 117 batters in 204.2 innings.
• The defense has struggled a bit in Ivy games with a .949 fielding percentage, seventh in the league, without throwing out one potential base stealer (20-of-20).

What's Up Next
The Big Green will be busy with those three games at Penn on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by three more Ivy games on the road at Harvard on April 30-May 1.

Ivy Pitcher of the Week Again
For the second straight week, senior Brooke Plonka was recognized by the Ivy League office as the Pitcher of the Week on April 12 after hurling a no-hitter against Brown on April 9, helping Dartmouth in three of its five wins over the week. In her three starts, she was 2-0 with a 1.47 ERA, striking out 22 in 19.0 innings while holding the opposition to a .185 average. The first Dartmouth pitcher to record two no-hitters in a career, Plonka also became the first Dartmouth pitcher to earn the honor in consecutive weeks since Kristen Rumley '15 did so on March 31 and April 7, 2015.

McFadyen Not Just a Fad
Since the team returned from the spring trip, senior Billie McFadyen has been on a tear at the plate, posting a .391 average with 11 RBIs in the 13 games as Dartmouth has gone 9-4 in that stretch. But she was especially clutch in the series against Brown, driving in all three runs of a 3-1 win with her first home run of the year and a two-run single, then belting a solo shot in the second game with two outs in the seventh to tie the game and help the Big Green pull out a 5-4 victory in eight innings. In the five games during the week, she hit a cool .500 with two doubles, two homers and seven RBIs while extending her hitting streak to eight games.

Brown Has Brown's Number
Jenna Brown got off to a slow start to the year with the tough competition before Ivy play began. But the rookie looks like she found her stroke during the weekend against her namesake, the Brown Bears. In the second game, she reached base four times with a single, double and two walks, scoring one run and driving in another in the 5-4, eight-inning win. But she saved her most dramatic moment for the finale when she launched a two-run, walk-off homer in the bottom of the seventh to lift the Big Green to a 9-7 victory. What a moment to crank the first four-bagger of her career!

Bears Swept Away
You may have gathered from previous notes that Dartmouth won all three games against Brown the weekend of April 9-10. It was nothing new for the Big Green having swept a three-game series from the Bears in 2018, and four-game sets in both 2016 and 2017. To find a series that Dartmouth lost to Brown, you'd have to go all the way back to 1997, the third year of official Big Green varsity softball. Dartmouth is 56-22 all-time against the Bears.

Another No-No
For the second time in her career, Brooke Plonka held a team hitless in a 3-1 victory over Brown to start the series on April 9. The lone run scored on a pair of errors in the third, but Plonka then retired 11 straight batters before a walk in the seventh. She also hit a batter in the frame, but finished off her no-hitter by getting the final two outs on strikes, giving her 11 punchouts in the game, her second double-digit K game of the season and fourth of her career. She is the only Dartmouth pitcher ever with two no-hitters to her credit, and she also helped out in a third, pitching the first 3.1 innings of a combined eight-inning no-hitter against North Carolina A&T back in 2020.

Early Tough Schedule Paying Off
Head coach Jen Williams did not go easy on her team when it came to scheduling competition after missing most of the last two seasons due to COVID, challenging her squad against some stiff competition. While the Big Green took some lumps along the way, going 3-16 before the start of Ivy play, the dividends are rolling in as Dartmouth, which ranks last in the league in batting average overall (.222), ranks second in that category in conference play (.294) while leading the league in scoring (5.7 runs per game). Maddie Katona is hitting a robust .423 against Ancient Eight teams and Jenna Brown .421 with two other regulars hitting over .385 — Billie McFadyen (.394) and Leila Hennessy (.387).

Schedules