The Dartmouth College baseball team snapped a four-game skid yesterday with a win against New Hampshire College by the score of 11-2.
The Big Green nearly doubled their weekend run total of six, despite having four non-regulars in the lineup.
Senior Ron Friedman played left, Eric Anderson '99 caught, Matt Klentak '02 took short, and surprisingly Aaron Meyer '00, who had started all 28 previous games, took the day off to allow Freshman Brian Hood to play first base.
The position switches, along with senior Mike Conway's slipping down to the number three spot to allow Friedman to lead-off for his second consecutive game, proved beneficial to what had been an ailing Dartmouth offense.
Friedman went 1-for-2 with an RBI and three runs scored, Anderson went 3-for-3 with four RBIs, and Klentak, who replaced Brian Nickerson '00 at shortstop, was 1-for-3 with his first home run of the season.
"I felt really good out there today ... Everybody did a nice job, you could see the enthusiasm was there," Klentak said.
This was Klentak's eighth start of the season, he had split time with Nickerson at short over the spring trip and has played less regularly since, but his homerun and two runs scored, as well as errorless defense, might foretell more action in the final weeks of the season.
Damien Roomets '02, who has appeared in 10.1 innings this season pitched well for seven strong innings allowing two runs while striking out four.
The scoring started early in the ballgame when the Penmen scored in the top of the first after Adam Aliberti hit an RBI single to center that scored Jason Longo who had reached on a single.
Dartmouth came right back in the bottom half when Friedman scored on a Dan Becker '02 sacrifice fly.
The Big Green would next score in the third inning when Brian Hood '02 scored on a wild pitch, and Klentak hit a solo home run to up the lead to 3-1.
Three more runs crossed the plate in the fourth when Friedman homered and Becker and Conway scored on an Anderson sac fly and a Joe Rockers '01 RBI single, respectively.
After being blanked in the fifth inning, Dartmouth put three more runs on the board in the sixth off a Conway single that scored Klentak, and an Anderson single that plated Conway and Friedman. The Penmen put up one more run off a run scoring on a single by Scott Bilodeau in the seventh before Bernard Mauricia '99 pitched two scoreless innings to close out the game for the Big Green.
"We played well as a team," Head Coach Bob Whalen said to the players after the game.
Despite two errors, Dartmouth pounded out eleven runs on eleven hits to get back on the track offensively. In addition, the pitching was almost flawless with two earned runs in nine innings and no walks allowed.
"We're out of the hitting slump now ... and ready to bounce right back," Klentak said about today's final game of the home stand against Plymouth State and the upcoming four game bid against Yale.
Today's contest against Plymouth State College will have its first pitch at 3 p.m.
