Big Green Begin Season at Nationally Ranked Miami

Friday, February 24

Coral Gables, Fla. / Mark Light Field

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Miami

Celebration baseball action versus Brown

Photo by: Doug Austin

Big Green Begin Season at Nationally Ranked Miami

2/23/2023 3:05:00 PM | Baseball

ACCNX (Friday)ACCNX (Saturday)ACCNX (Sunday)Live Stats Series History Dartmouth Notes

The baseball team is 3-4 all-time against the Hurricanes, including taking two of three in 2017

By: Rick Bender

DARTMOUTH (0-0) at No. 22/12 MIAMI (4-1)
Feb. 24-26, 2023 • Alex Rodriguez Park at Mark Light Stadium • Coral Gables, Fla.

Season Opener
• Dartmouth begins its 150th season of varsity baseball with three games at Miami.
• The last meetings between the two schools led to the Big Green taking two of three from the Hurricanes six years ago with both Dartmouth victories coming via a shutout.
• Head coach Bob Whalen enters his 34th year (33rd season due to the cancellation of the 2021 season) with an overall record of 626-610-3. He is one of just six Ivy League coaches in any sport to win 600 games at one school, and his 348 conference wins are the most ever in the Ancient Eight.
• The Big Green posted a 24-19 overall record last year and 14-7 mark in the Ivy League, its 12th winning record in conference play over the last 13 seasons.
• Dartmouth's record in the league over those 13 seasons is 170-92-1 for a .648 winning percentage, the best among Ivy teams.
• The Green are 14-18 in season openers under Whalen, losing the most recent opener at Louisville last year, 19-5, though the Green did beat the Cardinals the following day, 6-4.
• As usual, Dartmouth will play the first month-plus of the season outside of Hanover — a total of 17 games — before finally getting the opportunity to play at Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park on April Fool's Day against Penn.
• Although the Big Green graduated three positional starters, they have plenty of offensive firepower back with 23 of the 35 home runs returning, led by outfielder and co-captain Kolton Freeman who hit a team-high eight long balls.
• Overall, the returning players produced a slash line of .284/.365/.426 last year.
• On the mound, Dartmouth graduated two of its three weekend starters, leaving LHP and co-captain Trystan Sarcone (6-4, 4.85) as the ace of the staff.
• Dartmouth had three alums play in the big leagues last year. Kyle Hendricks '12 is 87-61 with a 3.46 ERA in 222 career starts, helped the Chicago Cubs win the 2016 World Series and finished third in the Cy Young voting that year. Brothers Cole Sulser '12 and Beau Sulser '16, pitched out of the bullpen for the Marlins and for the Pirates and Orioles, respectively.

Overall Record vs. Miami
• Dartmouth is 3-4 all-time against the Hurricanes with every game coming on Miami's home field.
• The Big Green won the initial meeting in 2000, 6-5, but the 12th-ranked Hurricanes rebounded to take the three-game series.
• After Dartmouth lost in the opening game of the 2010 NCAA Regional to No. 11 Miami, 12-8, the Big Green exacted some revenge in 2017 by taking two of three from the 17th-ranked Hurricanes.
• Against current ACC teams, the Big Green sport a 61-86-1 all-time record, most of which have come against Boston College (30-40) and N.C. State (11-41-1).
• Dartmouth has played a current member of the ACC three times in an NCAA Regional, losing two-of-three to BC in 1967, and dropping the opening game in 2009 and '10 to North Carolina and Miami, respectively.
• The Green also faced Florida State in the 1970 College World Series after defeating Iowa State in the first game, but came up short against the Seminoles, 6-0.

Scouting the Hurricanes
• Miami is ranked in all five national polls this week, listed as high as eighth by Collegiate Baseball and as low as 23rd by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.
• Since dropping their season opener to Penn State, the Hurricanes have won four straight contests, most recently 11-2 over Stetson and 9-3 over Indiana State this week.
• These three games will conclude Miami's season-opening eight-game homestand. Next week, it plays at Florida Atlantic before heading to Gainesville for three against seventh-ranked Florida.
• The offense has provided plenty of power thus far with 15 home runs and a .608 team slugging percentage in the first five games.
• Zach Levenson, Yohandy Morales and Blake Cyr each have three round-trippers to their credit.
• The pitching staff has posted an ERA of 3.40 while striking out 12.2 batters per nine innings.
• In the field, the defense has been solid with a .977 fielding percentage while turning four double plays and not allowing a stolen base.

Probable Starting Pitchers
• The honor of the opening-day start this year goes to fifth-year senior LHP Trystan Sarcone (6-4, 4.85 in 2022). An All-Ivy League Second Team selection, the southpaw led the Ivy League in fewest walks per nine innings (1.97) and the team in wins, strikeouts and ERA. Miami will counter with opening-day starter RHP Gage Ziehl (0-1, 22.50), who surrendered five runs in just two innings to Penn State.
• Taking the ball in game two on Saturday will be senior RHP Jack Metzger (2-2, 3.66), who led the Ivy League with six saves last year. He will be making his first career start, but he did have five outings of at least three innings last year, preparing him to get stretched out as a starter. The Hurricanes have RHP Karson Ligon (1-0, 1.35) ready to go after he hurled 6.2 innings of one-run ball in the first victory over the Nittany Lions last weekend.
• The series finale will feature a mystery starter for the Big Green. Depending on how the first two games play out, any number of pitchers could toe the slab to start the game. My guess? Either senior LHP Luke Carpenter or freshman RHP Eddie Albert (or junior RHP Brady Chappell or freshman RHP Mac Burke). Right, I don't know. A third right-hander will climb the hill for Miami in Alejandro Rosario (0-0, 3.38) who yielded two runs in 5.1 innings against Penn State and was in line to suffer the loss before C.J. Kayfus launched a two-out, two-run, walk-off homer in the ninth to clinch the series.

What's Up Next
The Big Green will travel to the USA Baseball Complex in Cary, North Carolina, for four games. After opening with Wagner on Friday, Dartmouth will take on Holy Cross and Penn State on Saturday before wrapping up the trip against Wagner again on Sunday. The matchups with the Seahawks will be the first ever between the two schools, and the Green last played the Nittany Lions in 1915. On the flip side, no team outside the Ivy League has played the Big Green more often than Holy Cross (150 games).

150th Season
The first varsity sport at Dartmouth, baseball begins its 150th season of competition with this series at Miami. The Big Green played three games in their inaugural season of 1866, beating Concord and Portsmouth before taking it on the chin against Amherst, 40-10 (the game was a little different back then). Dartmouth did exact its revenge the following year, beating the Lord Jeffs (now Mammoths) by a final of 30-24 (like I said, different game). The college did not have any intercollegiate games in 1870 or from 1873-77, but there have been games every year starting in 1878 save for 1917 (due to the Great War) and 2021 (due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

Preseason Polls
The Ivy League announced the results of its preseason poll on Feb. 17, and in a shocking development, those results look very similar to last year's final standings. Dartmouth is hoping to continue a trend from last year when it was picked to finish fifth and instead placed third. With some simple extrapolating, this year's third-place prognostication should translate into … you do the math.

2023 Ivy League Preseason Baseball Poll
	Team (first-place votes)	Points
1.	Columbia (12)	124
2.	Penn (3)	113
3.	Dartmouth (1)	91
4.	Harvard	75
5.	Yale	68
6.	Brown	45
7.	Princeton	31
8.	Cornell	29

Big Green Are Road Warriors …
As is custom for Dartmouth, it will begin the season on the road for an extended period. The first 17 games are scheduled to be played away from Hanover with the home opener slated for April 1 when the Big Green host Penn for an Ivy League doubleheader. The good news is that 15 of the last 25 games are all at Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park, including four of the last six conference series.

… But Love the Homestead
Dartmouth enters the 2022 season with a 119-50 record (.704) at its home venue, Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park, in the 14 years since the stadium was constructed and turf was added before the 2009 campaign. Last year, the Big Green went 9-5 at the facility.

Let's Continue Streaking
When the 2022 season came to an end, Dartmouth had two players with rather impressive active streaks. With the start of this season, the test will be if they can pick up where they left off and add to said streaks. Tyler Cox enters the opening weekend having reached base safely in his last 31 games, the longest such streak by a Big Green player since Mike Conway '99 had a 34-game streak in 1997-98 (last two games of 1997 and first 32 of 1998). And Kolton Freeman has a 19-game streak of his own as well. But the longest current hitting streak belongs to Connor Bertsch at eight games.

Aiming for More All-Ivy Honors
Dartmouth had three players named to the All-Ivy League First Team last year, boosting head coach Bob Whalen's total during his Big Green career to 80. No other team in the conference has had more than 65 (Penn) in that span (1990-2022). The most first-teamers for Whalen in any one year was eight in 2013, and he has had at least one every season except one — 2010. Oddly enough, Dartmouth won the Ivy League title that year.

Don't Forget the Rookie of the Year
Thanks to COVID, Tyler Cox had to wait a year to begin his college career, but he certainly made up for that lost time by being named the Ivy League Rookie of the Year. All it took was becoming the first Big Green player in 18 years to hit .400 (.402), including a whopping .464 in conference play to win the Blair Bat Award from the league as well. Dartmouth has had eight players win the Rookie of the Year award; no other Ivy team has had more than five winners. The Big Green also had the Ivy Player of the Year in Kade Kretzschmar, the fifth in program history (first awarded in 1993). Only Penn has more with six.

Get a Whiff of This
Last year's Dartmouth pitching staff set a team single-season record by striking out 319 batters in 374.0 innings (which is the second most in program history as well). But in terms of strikeouts per nine innings, the 2022 staff ranks fifth; the 1972 squad fanned 9.59 batters per nine innings to set the standard (281 in 263.2 stanzas).

Triple the Fun
Triples may be going the way of the dodo in the big leagues, but they were very much in style with the Big Green last year. Dartmouth hit 24 three-baggers in its 43 games, and that per-game average (0.56) led all Division I teams. Both Kade Kretzschmar and Tyler Robinson had five triples to lead the league, while catcher Nathan Cmeyla added four of his own.

Co-Captains
For the 2023 season, Dartmouth will have fifth-year senior and LHP Trystan Sarcone and OF Kolton Freeman serving as co-captains. Sarcone led the squad in victories (6), ERA (4.85) and fewest walks per nine innings (1.97), while Freeman topped the team in homers (8), walks (25) and hit by pitches (6).

Not Settling for Spares
Well, this isn't bowling, but if there is one thing the Big Green pitching staff does, it is throw strikes. For the past decade-plus, the staff has been one of the stingiest in the country in terms of issuing free passes. In both 2009 and 2010, the Big Green hurlers walked fewer batters per nine innings than any other Division I team. In six of the next eight seasons, they ranked among the top 15, including four times in the top 10. Although the team has posted its worst national rankings the past two full seasons (2019 and '22) at 61st and 72nd, respectively, the staff was still second in the league both years. And the Big Green also had the top two pitchers in the league in Trystan Sarcone (1.97) and Nathan Skinner (1.99).

Grad Transfer Updates
There are currently five former Big Green players that graduated from Dartmouth and are continuing their college careers elsewhere as graduate transfers. Here is a quick rundown of those players:

• Kade Kretzschmar '22: The 2022 Ivy League Player of the Year is starting in the outfield at California but is off to a slow start at 0-for-12 with a walk in each of the first four games for the 3-1 Bears, who last defeated No. 2 Stanford on Tuesday, 8-4.
• Justin Murray '22: After receiving first-team All-Ivy honors as a utility player and second-team honors as a pitcher last year, Murray has started three of the first four games for 1-3 Houston, which opened the season with a three-game series against Cal and his former teammate Kretzschmar. He is 2-for-8 with a sacrifice fly and an RBI.
• Cole Roland '22: Due to injuries and the pandemic, Roland didn't actually pitch until his fourth year at Dartmouth, posting a 3.90 ERA in 30.0 innings with a 2-1 record, four saves and 37 strikeouts. He is now pitching at nationally ranked Wake Forest, and in his first two outings he has not allowed a hit in 2.1 innings while getting all seven outs on strikes.
• Jonah Jenkins '21: This right-hander pitched at San Francisco last year and is now at Ohio State where he picked up a win out of the bullpen in his first outing, going 4.2 scoreless stanzas while allowing just one hit in a 10-5 win over UConn.
• Ubaldo Lopez '21: The product of Archbishop McCarthy in Florida and 2019 Big Green leader in home runs, doubles and slugging is now in his second season at Georgetown. Last year he walloped 19 home runs in 48 games for the Hoyas, and he's off to another good start this year, hitting .429 with two homers in the first four contests.

MLB Watch
In the summer of 2014, Kyle Hendricks '12 made his MLB debut with the Chicago Cubs and finished his rookie year with a 7-2 record over 13 starts with a 2.46 ERA. Nine years later he is an established big leaguer who led both leagues with an ERA of 2.13 in 2016, finishing third in the Cy Young balloting and helping the Cubs win their first World Series in 108 years. In nine seasons in Chicago, Hendricks boasts an 87-61 record with an ERA of 3.46 while striking out 7.4 batters per nine innings. Those 87 victories are the most evern for a Dartmouth alum, as are his 1,079 strikeouts.

One of Hendricks' classmates, Cole Sulser '12, debuted in September 2019 with Tampa Bay and did not allow a run in seven appearances. He then pitched for two seasons for the Baltimore Orioles before relieving in 39 games for the Miami Marlins last year. For his career, he has a record of 7-13 with 15 saves and an ERA of 3.75 over 127.1 inning with 139 strikeouts.

Sulser's younger brother, Beau Sulser '16, reached the big leagues last year with the Pittsburgh Pirates before getting traded mid-season to the Orioles. He appeared in 10 games, tossing 22.1 innings while recording a 3.63 ERA.

Dartmouth also had two other former players toiling in the minors in 2022:
• RHP Michael Danielak '16 (AA ball with the A's)
• C Ben Rice '22 (A ball with the Yankees)