Crucial Series for Dartmouth at Harvard On Tap

Saturday, April 30

Cambridge, Mass. / O'Donnell Field

11:30 AM

Dartmouth College

Harvard

Connor Bertsch hustles down the line against Princeton, April 17, 2022

Junior third baseman Connor Bertsch

Photo by: Gil Talbot

Crucial Series for Dartmouth at Harvard On Tap

4/29/2022 4:46:00 PM | Baseball

ESPN+ (Game 1)ESPN+ (Game 2)ESPN+ (Game 3)Live Stats Dartmouth Notes

The Big Green are looking to keep pace with Columbia and Penn with three games against the Crimson

By: Rick Bender

DARTMOUTH (19-15, 10-5) at HARVARD (16-18, 7-7)
April 30 DH (11:30 a.m.) • May 1 (Noon) • O'Donnell Field • Cambridge, Mass.

In Control of Destiny
The good news for Dartmouth right now is that it controls its own destiny in terms of qualifying for the Ivy League Championship Series on May 21-22. The bad news is what the team will have to do.
Sitting three games back in the loss column with six games to play, the Big Green are guaranteed to qualify for the ILCS if they win each of their last six games — sweeping Harvard in Cambridge and first-place Columbia in Hanover. There are other scenarios in which the team would qualify, but this is the only scenario that guarantees Dartmouth makes it. Nobody ever said destiny was a cake walk.

A Look Back at the Past Week
• Dartmouth won its fourth of five Ivy League series thus far, taking two of three on the road at Cornell.
• The trip to Ithaca did not begin well as the Big Red took the first game, 12-7, swatting four home runs.
• The Big Green rebounded in the second game, however, and cruised to a 12-2 victory.
• Kade Kretzschmar was perfect at the plate in the win, going 2-for-2 with a homer, three runs and three RBIs, while Tyler Cox banged out three hits and scored three times as well.
• Trystan Sarcone earned the victory with career highs of eight innings and 10 strikeouts, becoming the third Dartmouth pitcher to punch out 10 batters this season.
• In the finale, the Big Green rallied from a 7-2 deficit to take the series, 10-8. Four players had three hits while Connor Bertsch and Max Zajec both homered.
• The bullpen work by Cole Roland and Jack Metzger was terrific, allowing just one earned run over seven stanzas.
• The bats that had been so potent the previous nine games were silenced by Holy Cross in a midweek matchup on Tuesday, leaving Dartmouth on the wrong end of a 3-1 score.

Overall Record vs. Harvard
• By the end of this series, Dartmouth will have played the Crimson more than any other opponent with Harvard holding a 136-128 advantage.
• Since the Big Green won 24 of 25 between 2010-16, the Crimson have won seven of the last 11 matchups, which includes series victories each of the last two seasons (2018, '19).
• Harvard has been playing at the site of O'Donnell Field since 1898, beating Dartmouth in the inaugural game, 13-7. Since 1923, the Big Green are 48-56 (.462) at the site.
• Head coach Bob Whalen is 64-48 against Harvard during his tenure with the Big Green.

Scouting the Crimson
• Harvard made some noise nationally with a win and a close defeat at both Miami and UCLA, teams that are currently in the top 15.
• The Crimson won their first five conference games, too, but lost six in a row — five to Penn and Columbia — before taking two of three at Princeton last week.
• The Harvard offense is fifth in the league in scoring (6.0 runs per game) with a line of .270/.353/.395 as a team.
• Chris Snopek, son of the former big leaguer with the same name, leads the four players batting over .300 (.346), while Jake Berger (.301, 7 HR) and Logan Bravo (.331, 5 HR, 12 2B) provide the most power.
• Like most teams in the Ancient Eight, the Crimson have been even better at the plate in conference action with 7.5 runs per game and a line of .293/.375/.438.
• Harvard's staff ERA of 6.31 overall has gotten worse in league play, however, at 7.63 partly due to control issues (6.6 walks per 9 IP), though the Crimson strike out 10.8 batters per nine innings as well, second only to Penn (10.9).
The glove work has been in the middle of the Ivy pack with a .966 fielding percentage, but the catchers have thrown out half of the base stealers in conference games (14-of-28).

Last Time Against Harvard
The Crimson came to Hanover in 2019 and won their first series at Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park (opened in 2009). The first game was a classic pitchers' duel between Dartmouth's Cole O'Connor (7 IP, 1 ER) and Harvard's Hunter Bigge (8.0 IP, 0 ER). The score was tied at one entering the ninth, and the Crimson took advantage of a leadoff walk as Jake Suddleson delivered a two-out RBI single. The Big Green were then retired in order in the bottom half as Harvard won the 2-1 contest.

Dartmouth scored first in game two, but the Crimson put four on the board in the fourth and fifth frames en route to an 11-3 victory. Bigge did the most damage at the plate in this game, going 3-for-4 with a homer and four RBIs.

The final game was salvaged by the Big Green as the bats broke through for 15 runs, including a six-run second. Nate Ostmo went 4-for-6 with a homer and four RBIs while Steffen Torgersen had a career-high five RBIs with a long ball of his own. Nathan Skinner pitched six strong innings allowing one earned run on four hits and two walks with six strikeouts in the 15-7 triumph.

Probable Starting Pitchers
• Senior RHP Nathan Skinner (4-3, 5.66) is looking to put up similar numbers as his last start against the Crimson three years ago and shake off a rough outing from last week at Cornell. The Crimson will send RHP Chris Clark (2-1, 3.00) to the mound for his second collegiate start. His first was superb at Princeton last week, tossing one-hit ball for five frames while striking out 11.
• Next up for the Big Green will be LHP Trystan Sarcone (4-2, 3.98), the Ivy League leader in ERA in league games at 1.65. The southpaw has not allowed more than two earned runs in any of his five Ivy starts, striking out a career-high 10 batters last week. His opponent on the mound will be rookie RHP Sean Matson (2-3, 7.07) making his fifth start. He didn't get out of the second inning last week at Princeton but did have a five-inning, one-run, nine-strikeout performance at Cornell a month ago.
• Senior RHP Justin Murray (3-3, 9.00) had lowered his ERA in each of his first four Ivy starts before lasting just two innings at Cornell last week. Harvard will go with flamethrower RHP Jaren Zinn (2-2, 7.27), who is sixth nationally with 14.3 strikeouts per nine innings but also walks 8.3 as well while allowing opponents to hit .282.

What's Up Next
Dartmouth will host Manhattan for three games next weekend before finishing the season with first-place Columbia in Hanover.

MLB Debut
The 2017 Ivy League Pitcher of the Year Beau Sulser '16 got the call to MLB with the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 24, and he made his debut on the mound two days later. The first batter Sulser faced was Andrew McCutchen of the Milwaukee Brewers, whom he struck out. He eventually threw 2.2 innings, allowing two unearned runs after two perfect stanzas with four strikeouts. He is the third Dartmouth pitcher currently pitching in the bigs, joining Kyle Hendricks '12 (Chicago Cubs) and his older brother, Cole '12, of the Miami Marlins. This is just the second time three Dartmouth alums have been active in MLB at the same time, joining Mike Remlinger '88, Mark Johnson '90 and Brad Ausmus '91, though Ausmus never played for the Big Green after signing out of high school.

Bats Quieted by Crusaders
Entering the showdown with Holy Cross on April 26, Dartmouth had averaged 10.7 runs over the previous nine games. But that barrage came to an abrupt end as the three Crusader pitchers held the Big Green to four hits and one run in a 3-1 defeat. Tyler Cox and Justin Murray supplied two hits apiece, including a solo home run by the latter, continuing their torrid hittting. Cox is hitting .472 (34-of-72) this month, while Murray is at an even .400 (26-of-65). Oh, and Cox is among the top 10 nationally in hits per game (1.76, fourth) and average (.423, ninth), and he leads the Ivy League in conference play with a .493 average, 34 hits and .539 OBP.

Streak Ends at 25 for Kretzschmar
Senior Kade Kretzschmar had reached base safely in 25 consecutive games entering the game against Holy Cross, the longest such streak by a Big Green player in 13 years (Jim Wren '10). But the Crusaders stuck him with the collar (0-for-4) to bring the streak to an end. Now Tyler Cox is not far from that total at 22 games; he will catch Kretzschmar should he reach base in all three games this weekend.

Another Series Victory
Dartmouth pulled off its fourth Ivy series victory out of five this season by taking two of three at Cornell on April 23-24. That is double the total the team had in the last complete season in 2019 and matches the 2018 squad.

Biggest Comeback in Five Years
After four innings of the final game at Cornell on April 24, Dartmouth found itself trailing the Big Red by five runs, 7-2. A five-run fifth erased that deficit, and after both teams scored a run, the Green added tallies in the eighth and ninth to win the game, 10-8. It was the first comeback from five runs down since a 19-11 victory over the University of Chicago on March 21, 2017.

Zajec a Double Shy of a Cycle
Only two players are known to have hit for the cycle in Dartmouth history — Pat Lavery '84 and Jake Carlson '12. Sophomore Max Zajec wasn't far from becoming the third in the 10-8 win at Cornell, going 3-for-5 with a triple and his first collegiate home run, leaving him just a double short of making history. The first baseman is finding his stroke at the plate, going 5-for-8 with six RBIs in his last two starts, raising his average 62 points.

Bullpen a Relief
When head coach Bob Whalen summoned Cole Roland from the bullpen at Cornell on April 24, Dartmouth still had seven innings to navigate while already trailing the Big Red, 3-0. But the senior was up to the task, providing a career-high five innings while striking out six and allowing just one earned run. His performance earned him the victory as the Big Green rallied for the win, and junior Jack Metzger did his thing over the final two frames, retiring six of the seven batters he faced for his league-leading fifth save.

Freeman Free Passes
Kolton Freeman must have been giving off his most intimidating vibes at Cornell as the junior drew seven walks in the series, three in each of the last two games. That bumped his season total of free passes to 21, which leads the team and ranks among the top 10 in the league. So while he is sixth on the Big Green with a .279 average, he is third in on-base percentage (.403). Oh, the last Big Green player to walk six times in a two-game span? Have to go back to Coach Whalen's first year on the job, 1990, when future big leaguer Mark Johnson accomplished the feat at home against … Cornell.

First Caught Stealing … Sort of
Dartmouth successfully stole bases on its first 27 attempts in Ivy League play, but that streak ended in the final game at Cornell, technically. Tyler Cox attempted to steal third base in the eighth inning with the score tied at eight, and the ball arrived in plenty of time to put him out. Luckily for the Big Green, the third baseman dropped the ball for an error, and Cox eventually scored the game-winning run. But that is recorded as a caught stealing for Cox, even though he ended up being safe. Just another quirk to the scoring rules in baseball!

Sarcone Sizzles
Senior Trystan Sarcone had his stuff working at Cornell on April 26 as the southpaw struck out a career-high 10 batters over his eight innings of work, the longest outing of his career as well. He is now 5-1 in his last seven starts with a 2.66 ERA, striking out 42 batters and walking just nine over 44.0 innings, and his 1.65 ERA in Ivy play leads the league. He also became the third Big Green pitcher to record 10 punchouts in a game this year. The last time Dartmouth had three such games in a season was 2013 (Kyle Hunter twice and Michael Johnson). Sarcone is also tied for the Ivy lead in overall victories with five.