The Dartmouth baseball team eked out a 4-3 victory at Holy Cross yesterday to get back in the win column. The Big Green have won six of seven games dating back to last Tuesday.
Holy Cross led early, scoring two runs in the first. Dartmouth remained scoreless until Joe Manfredi came in for Holy Cross and allowed two runs each in the fourth and fifth innings. Aaron Meyer '00 scored on a failed pick-off attempt and Yale Dieckmann '99 batted in James Little '99 to tie the game at two.
In the fifth, Matt Klentak '02, making the start for the Big Green at short, scored from first on a misplayed hit by Mike Conway '99. Conway then scored when Dan Becker '02 hit a double to right to make the score 4-2, ending Dartmouth's scoring for the game.
Freshman Damien Roomets threw six strong innings with two runs allowed on six hits to gain his second win of the season. Roomets was troubled early on but soon gained control of his pitches.
"At the beginning of the game my poise was, to say the least, soggy," Roomets said. "As the game went on my poise improved and got better. By the sixth inning my poise was good and my junk was crisp."
Roomets cruised after the first inning, blanking the Crusaders through the sixth. Jon Miller '99 then took the hill for the Green, and, after keeping Holy Cross from crossing the plate in the seventh and eigth, gave up a double in the ninth that forced Whalen to call in Nick Ratliff '99.
Although Ratliff put two more runners on to load the bases, he was still able to retire the Crusaders and keep them from tying up the game.
"I was sort of up and down in the last inning, I didn't have good control," Ratliff said.
Ratliff was more complimentary of his fellow pitchers' performances.
"We did a good job of challenging hitters with our fastball," he said. "Throwing hitters fastballs in curveball counts and curveballs in fastball counts and vice-versa."
Dartmouth's pitching has been solid. Dartmouth's offense, with eight hits in yesterday's game and 41 hits last weekend, has shown its strength and consistency
Conway extended his hitting streak to 14 games, though Mike Levy '01 snapped his 10 game streak. Dan Becker '02 continued to lead the freshmen hitters, adding two hits and an RBI.
But this non-conference win and the team's success of late won't aid the Big Green in their effort to catch division leader and Ivy League-defending Champion Harvard. The Crimson's three wins over second-place Brown this weekend effectively knocked Dartmouth out of the playoff race.
Dartmouth lost the playoff bid despite a strong effort at the end of the year, as evidenced in this past weekend's Yale contests in New Haven. Southpaw Jeff Dutremble '01 earned Ivy League Pitcher of the Week for his brilliant pitching performance over the weekend. Dutremble hurled a seven-inning complete game, only allowing two hits and retiring fifteen straight batters at one point.
Dutremble is the first Dartouth player all year to win a Player of the Week award. Levy was also recognized by the Ivy League for his nine-for-16, 12 RBI weekend hitting spree.
This coming weekend Dartmouth faces Ivy League rival Harvard at home on Saturday, beginning a doubleheader at noon. The Green then travel to Cambridge to complete the four-game set before closing the season at home against Middlebury College next Tuesday.