This week, the Dartmouth baseball team (12-19) reached into the mixed bag which has been its season and pulled out...mixed results.
Big Green down St. Anselm 12-5
Dartmouth was just toying with them. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Whatever their ulterior motives, the Big Green exploded with an eight-run eighth inning to break out of a 4-4 tie and win 12-5 over St. Anselm (6-17) Tuesday before the home crowd at Red Rolfe Field.
Hitting has not posed a problem for Dartmouth all season, and Tuesday proved no different. The Big Green rocked St. Anselm starter Bill Travers (0-3) for 11 earned runs on 15 hits. Leftfielder Brian Eller '94 and DH Travis Horton '96 inflicted the most damage.
The senior went 4-for-5 with two runs scored and an RBI while the sophomore added a 3-for-5, two-run, four-RBI performance. "I felt like I was in the zone," Horton said. "Those guys weren't going to beat me."
David Palshaw '96 (2-2) provided Dartmouth with a solid relief pitching effort, allowing no earned runs and only three hits in three innings of work to earn the win. "When they need someone, I'll go a few innings in the middle," Palshaw said. "I got a lot of help from that defense. They did a great job."
The eighth inning left Big Green fans blinking in disbelief. The team batted through the lineup before St. Anselm made a putout. "We were slow starting off, but when you know you can explode like that anytime, for you as a pitcher it gives you a lot of confidence," Palshaw said.
"It didn't click for the first seven innings, but then everybody just put it together in the eighth," Horton added.
Dartmouth seemingly employed every method imaginable of advancing and scoring its baserunners during the frame, using bunt-singles (Greg Gaynor '97 and Craig Pawling '96), a hit batsman (Greg Gilmer '96), a three-base, three-run error (in leftfield off an Andrew Spencer '97 single) and a groundout (Gaynor).
The Big Green also managed the usual array of walks (Mike Armstrong '97), base hits (Spencer, Eller, Jake Isler '96 and Jim Meyer '97) and doubles (Horton) during the rally.
That indeed was the ticket.
UNH drops Dartmouth 7-2
The Big Green traveled downstate to Durham Wednesday to face what Palshaw called "a solid" University of New Hampshire ballclub. If they had known the Wildcat pitching duo of Jim Collins (2-2) and Bill Batchelder was waiting, they might have decided to save themselves a trip down Interstate 89.
Collins and Batchelder combined to give up no extra base hits, no walks and only one earned run over the eight innings. Batchelder earned a save for his inning of work. "They threw strikes and painted the corners," Horton said. "They were pitching everybody in."
Rick MacDonald '94 (1-5) took the loss for the Big Green.
Since Dartmouth's eleven hits all fell for singles, the squad tried to manufacture some runs. Spencer and Armstrong did their parts, going 2-for-4 with a stolen base each, but UNH (7-20) clinched the victory with a four-run final frame. Alex Watson paced the Wildcats with a 2-for-4, two-RBI performance, and Horton also went 2-for-4 for Dartmouth.
It was a long trip back up I-89.
