Softball Hosts Brown with Four-Game Win Streak on the Line

Saturday, April 9

Hanover, N.H.

9:00 AM

Dartmouth College

Brown

Photo by: Big Zig Photography

Softball Hosts Brown with Four-Game Win Streak on the Line

4/8/2022 12:34:00 PM | Softball

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

The Big Green have won six of their last eight games, while the Bears have won five of their last seven

By: Rick Bender

DARTMOUTH (9-20, 3-3) vs. BROWN (11-15, 3-6)
April 9-10, 2022 • Dartmouth Softball Park • Hanover, N.H.

GAME TIME UPDATES
Game 1	April 9 at 9 a.m.
Game 2	April 10 at 12:30 p.m.
Game 3	April 10 after game 2 (~2:30)

Building on Recent Success
Since starting the season with three wins in their first 21 games, Dartmouth has won six of eight, including its last four in a row. Last weekend, the Big Green took two of three at the Ivy League's leader, Princeton, then enjoyed a mid-week doubleheader sweep of Hartford.

Brown has also played well lately, winning five of its last seven, including a series win at Yale. The Bears had the Ivy League Player and Rookie of the Week last week, while Dartmouth had the PItcher of the Week in Brooke Plonka.

Overall Record vs. Brown
• Dartmouth has a decided edge in the series with the Bears with a 53-22 record.
• The Big Green have won 16 of the last 17 meetings, taking 15 straight before Brown ended the streak in 2019 with a 6-4 win.
• Dartmouth has not lost a series to the Bears since 1997, winning 14 (including the last seven) and splitting the other eight.
• Since Dartmouth Softball Park opened in 2012, the Green are 14-1 against the Bears at the venue.
• In Hanover, Dartmouth is a robust 27-8 against Brown.

Last Time Against the Bears
Going back to 2019 for the last games in the series, Dartmouth traveled to Providence and took two of three from Brown, winning the opener by a score of 3-1. All three runs came in the top of the first with Bryce West and Tessa Grossman supplying RBI singles, and Shelby Wilkison earned the win with five innings of one-run ball. Brooke Plonka got the final six outs for her second save of the season.

The Bears bit back in game two, ending the Big Green's 15-game winning streak in the series by a 6-4 count. The six runs came in the first two frames with five in the second thanks to a pair of long balls. Dartmouth rallied late with two runs in the fifth, one in sixth and another in the seventh, but it was not enough.

Pitching and defense was the name of the rubber game, as well as the bat of Taylor Ward, who blasted a solo homer in the first and drove in an insurance run in the seventh in the 2-0 triumph. Heather Turner twirled five-plus shutout stanzas on three hits before Plonka came in and preserved the 1-0 lead in the sixth, stranding a leadoff double at second. She then pitched a perfect seventh for another save.

Scouting Brown
• As noted above, the Bears have won five of their last seven games, taking two of three at Yale, sweeping a doubleheader from Bryant and splitting the last two games with Penn.
• Brown leads the Ivy League in scoring at just over four runs a game despite ranking sixth in home runs. But it does have the best on-base percentage (.338) and most stolen bases (31) to wreak havoc on the bases.
• Katie O'Leary, the reigning Ivy Player of the Week, is one of the most dangerous hitters in the league with a .367 average, three homers and 17 RBIs in 19 games.
• Leah Carey is the catalyst of the offense with a .373 on-base percentage and perfect 11-of-11 stealing bases.
• The Bears have the league's best staff ERA (2.79) and will rely primarily upon three pitchers — Erin Elgas (1-1, 1.24), Alexis Guevara (4-4, 2.27) and Lauren Innerst (4-4, 3.03).
• Brown also has the best fielding percentage at .970.

What's Up Next
A mid-week doubleheader against Merrimack has been canceled, so Dartmouth next hits the road to Philadelphia to take on the Quakers of Penn in a three-game series next weekend.

Doubleheader Sweep
With 2-1 and 7-2 victories over Hartford on April 6, Dartmouth enjoyed its first doubleheader sweep of the year. Since the start of the 2019 campaign, the Big Green have won two games in a day just four times — against Tufts in the abbreviated 2021 campaign, Princeton in the final series of 2019 and Yale exactly three years prior on April 6, 2019.

Going the Extra Base
In the 7-2 win over Hartford on April 6, the Big Green bats banged out a season-high six extra-base hits — four doubles, a triple and a home run. Those six hits were provided by six different players with rookie Alaana Panu swatting the four-bagger, her second of the season, and Maddie Katona ripping her first career triple.

First Save of the Season
Madie Augusto picked up her second win of the year by shutting out Hartford for four innings while scattering seven hits. Freshman Megan Hagge came out to the circle to start the fifth and held the Hawks in check for two frames before running into a little trouble in the seventh. But after two unearned runs crossed the plate, she recorded the final outs to secure the team's first save of the year (and first since the final game of the 2019 season).

Plonka Continues Dominance
Senior Brooke Plonka was named the Ivy League Pitcher of the Week on April 4, and she picked up where she left off, mowing down Hartford hitters on April 6 in another complete-game victory, 2-1. She did have her streak of 19.1 consecutive scoreless stanzas end on a solo homer in the second, but that was her only mistake as she improved to 7-9 on the season.

100th Game at DSP
The 2-1 win over Hartford on April 6 was the 100th game played at Dartmouth Softball Park. Since the venue opened for the 2012 season, the Big Green are 68-33 on their home field, a .673 winning percentage.

Ivy Pitcher of the Week
Hard to imagine anyone else getting this award after the week Brooke Plonka had. The senior southpaw first defeated Holy Cross, 4-1, going the distance to pick up the win. But her best performances came at Princeton as she shut out the league-leading Tigers twice in two days by scores of 2-0 and 8-0. The first blanking was a three-hitter with eight strikeouts, the second a dazzling one-hitter with five more punchouts. For the week, Plonka was 3-0 with 0.35 ERA over 20.0 innings. She is the first weekly award winner for the Big Green this season, and this is the second such honor of her career.

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. She challenged her team against some stiff competition, and the Big Green took some lumps along the way, going 3-16 before the start of Ivy play. But the dividends are rolling in as Dartmouth, which ranks last in the league in batting average overall (.211), leads the league in that category in conference play (.285). Maddie Katona is hitting a robust .412 against Ancient Eight teams with four other regulars hitting at least .333.

Series Win at Princeton
Outside expectations were likely pretty low for Dartmouth entering its series at Princeton with the Tigers sitting atop the standings and the Big Green just 1-2 in league play. But after Princeton won the opener, Dartmouth won the final two by shutout to win the series for the seventh straight time against the Tigers. The wins helped propel the Green into the middle of the Ivy League standings and set the team up to make a run for the conference crown with plenty of season left.

Run-Rule Victory
With the 8-0 win in six innings at Princeton on April 3, Dartmouth enjoyed its first victory shortened by the run rule since May 4, 2019 when it posted a 12-4 triumph against … the very same Tigers. Seven different starters scored at least one run and five drove in at least one run as the Big Green banged out a season-high five doubles.

Back-to-Back Shutouts
With the 2-0 and 8-0 wins at Princeton on April 2-3, Dartmouth threw more shutouts in one weekend than it had thrown in four of the past five seasons. The Big Green recorded exactly one in those years except for 2019 when they posted three, the total they have now in 2022. But the last time Dartmouth threw shutouts in consecutive games was in 2015 when it blanked its opponents in three straight games — Brown twice on April 19 and Harvard six days later. The last Big Green pitcher to throw shutouts in consecutive starts was from that year as well with Kristen Rumley '15 holding Brown and Harvard scoreless in two of those games.