Season Closes with Cornell in Hanover This Weekend

Saturday, May 7

Hanover, N.H.

12:30 PM

Dartmouth College

Cornell

The Class of 2022 (l-r): Brooke Plonka, Madie Augusto, Emily Lipsett, Billie McFadyen, Kira La Scola

Photo by: Dawn Brown

Season Closes with Cornell in Hanover This Weekend

5/6/2022 3:48:00 PM | Softball

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

Dartmouth will honor not only the seniors on Sunday, but members of the last two classes as well

By: Rick Bender

DARTMOUTH (18-23, 12-6) vs. CORNELL (16-21, 6-12)
May 7, 2022, 12:30 p.m. (DH) • May 8, 12:30 p.m. • Dartmouth Softball Park • Hanover, N.H.

Closing Out the Season
With Harvard's series victory at Cornell earlier this week, Dartmouth was eliminated from the Ivy League Championship Series, leaving the Big Green in third place on the outside looking in. But having won 13 of its last 16 games, Dartmouth is looking to continue its strong finish. The players can hold their heads high for how they turned their season around after a difficult non-conference slate, starting with a series win on the road over the Ivy League regular season champions, Princeton, just over a month ago.

And this weekend we honor the five members of the senior class which has endured and persevered through the COVID-19 pandemic and come out on the other side having represented Dartmouth College so well on and off the field.

Overall Record vs. Cornell
• Since the first official varsity season in 1995, Dartmouth is 22-38 against its big color counterpart in the league.
• Nearly all of the success the Big Green have had in the series has come in the last nine years having won 14 of the last 15 meetings.
• Dartmouth had won 12 straight contests before the Big Red handed the Green a 13-4 loss to start the three-game set in 2019.
• These two teams squared off in the 2009 Ivy Championship Series in Ithaca with Cornell taking the title in three games, the Big Green's first of five ICS appearances to date.
• In Hanover, the Green are 11-12 against Cornell but 8-1 since Dartmouth Softball Park opened in 2012.

Last Time Against the Big Red
After Dartmouth had its 12-game win streak against Cornell snapped emphatically in the opener, the Big Green came right back and won a blowout of their own before taking the series in Ithaca.

The Big Red bats could not be quieted in the first game as Cornell blasted four home runs and handed the visitors a 13-4 defeat in five innings. Calista Almer (2-for-2, two runs) and Micah Schroder (2-for-2, three RBIs) were the lone bright spots for Dartmouth in the game.

The taste of the loss did not linger for the Big Green as they came right back and turned the tables on Cornell, pummeling their hosts by a 16-1 final in five frames. The top three hitters in the lineup — Almer, Taylor Ward and Schroder — combined to go a perfect 9-for-9 at the plate with nine runs and seven RBIs, and everyone in the lineup had at least one hit and one run scored. Heather Turner, meanwhile, allowed just one run on three hits in her shortened complete game.

Dartmouth broke open a 1-1 tie in the fourth inning of the third game by scoring four runs en route to a 7-3 triumph. Almer, Ward and Schroder each had RBI singles (the last of which drove in two), and Abby Shipley and McKenna Gray popped solo homers in the fifth and seventh stanzas, respectively, to provide some cushion. Turner was the star in the circle again, allowing just one run before tiring in the seventh, and Brooke Plonka relieved to get the final out with the bases loaded for the save.

Scouting Cornell
• After dropping two of three to Harvard in their final series at home, the Big Red need at least one win this weekend to avoid the cellar by themselves.
• Cornell has won exactly one game in each of its six Ivy League weekends thus far.
• The Big Red are averaging 3.44 runs a game in league play, well below Dartmouth's 5.5 runs.
• Olivia Rooney is the only player batting over .300 (.340) , but Hanna Crist is the most dangerous at the plate with a line of .292/.419/.594, eight home runs and eight stolen bases (nearly half of the team's 17 swipes).
• Three pitchers have combined for an ERA of 3.92 on the season with Mia Burd (7-7, 3.33) and Gabrielle Maday (5-10, 4.19) handling nearly 85 percent of the work.
• Cornell has committed twice as many errors in league play compared to the Big Green (31-15) for a .946 fielding percentage, but it has thrown out 6-of-18 base stealers, the second-best percentage in Ivy play (behind Dartmouth).

Honoring the Senior Class(es)
This weekend, Dartmouth will not only recognize the members of the Class of 2022 on Sunday, but also those that didn't get a Senior Day either of the last two years, a few of whom will be at Dartmouth Softball Park this weekend. Be there on Saturday to help give a proper sendoff to Class of 2020 members Calista Almer Sophie Ausmus and Micah Schroder!

Ivy Championship Series Hopes Dashed
After losing two of three at Harvard this past weekend, Dartmouth needed a little help from this weekend's opponent to keep its hopes alive of qualifying for the Ivy Championship Series. But Cornell, which the Big Green needed to beat Harvard twice in Ithaca on Tuesday and Wednesday, could only come away with one win. That means that even with a sweep of the Big Red, Dartmouth can only tie the Crimson for second place, and Harvard owns the tiebreaker by virtue of its series win over the Green.

Ivy Player, Rookie of the Week
It took nearly the entire season, but Dartmouth players finally got recognized as the Ivy League's Player of the Week and Rookie of the Week on May 2. Senior Billie McFadyen was named the former for hitting .450 (9-for-20) with a triple, two homers, 10 runs and five RBIs over six games during the week, helping the Big Green sweep Penn and come to the brink of a series win at Harvard.
The Rookie of the Week went to freshman Alaana Panu who merely hit .523 (11-for-21) with five runs and five RBIs, plus narrowly missed out on hitting for the cycle in the second game at Harvard, needing only a single to accomplish the feat. She also robbed a three-run long ball with a terrific catch at the fence during that 11-6 win over the Crimson.

Oh So Close
After splitting two games at Harvard, the Big Green would have been in the driver's seat for a berth in the Ivy League Championship Series with one more win in the series finale on May 1. Dartmouth jumped out to a 3-0 lead thanks to a Billie McFadyen two-run triple, but the Crimson clapped back with three in the third. The game remained tied at three into the seventh, and both teams squandered scoring opportunities to send the game into extra innings. It looked like the game would go into the ninth inning after the first two Harvard batters were retired in the bottom of the eighth. But a double and an infield hit allowed the winning run to score as the runner never slowed around third on the throw to first, then beat the throw to the plate for the walk-off win.

Season-High 16 Hits at Harvard
Dartmouth rebounded from a 4-1 loss in the opener at Cambridge by pounding out a season-high 16 hits to defeat the Crimson in the second game, 11-6. Every batter in the lineup had at least one hit, led by Emily Lipsett and Alaana Panu with a career-high three hits for each. Both hitters also had career highs of two and three RBIs, respectively, and Panu came a single shy of hitting for the cycle.

Back-To-Back Jacks
For the second time this season, Dartmouth hit back-to-back homers, this time by Alaana Panu and Kate Farren in the first inning of the 11-6 win at Harvard. Farren was also involved in the first instance in the first Ivy game of the season against Yale, going yard right after Leila Hennessy hit one over the fence just inside the left-field foul pole. Before this season, the last time the Green hit consecutive long balls was in 2020 against Army West Point, courtesy of Micah Schroder and Abby Shipley.

3 … 2 … 1 … Contact!
Every player in the Ivy League with more than six at-bats in conference play has struck out at least once this season. Every player except Billie McFadyen, that is. The senior has had 73 plate appearances against Ivy opponents (63 at-bats, eight walks), and not once has she been called out on strikes, posting a .397 average, second in the Ancient Eight. The 5-foot second baseman also packs a wallop with a .683 slugging percentage, third best in the league. Overall, she has not struck out in her last 84 at-bats, dating back to the 5-0 win over Mercer on March 20.

Speaking of League Leaders …
Look through the Ivy batting leaders in conference play and you will find Billie McFadyen and Kate Farren littered throughout the lists. McFadyen is among the top six in triples (2, t-1st), batting average (.397, 2nd), OBP (.465, t-2nd), total bases (43, 2nd), slugging (.683, 3rd), hits (t-3rd), homers (4, t-3rd), runs (t-3rd) and RBIs (15, 6th). Then there's Farren who is first in doubles (10), second in slugging (.707), fourth in total bases (41), tied for fourth in RBIs (16) and tied for sixth in homers (3).

Farren Doubles Her Fun
Junior Kate Farren has been a doubles machine of late, swatting 10 two-baggers in the last 15 games. She now leads the Ivy League with 10 doubles in conference games, while her 11 on the season are the third most overall in the Ancient Eight. Not bad for someone who hadn't hit a double in the first 21 games. She is the 15th player in program history to hit double-digit doubles in a season. She also provided a career-high four RBIs in the 9-8 win over Penn and has 22 on the season, second to McFadyen's 23.