Dartmouth's softball team lay in wait yesterday expecting to hear about their seed in the ECAC Championships at which the Big Green was the runner-up last year. The word finally came through: Dartmouth is the No.2 seed.
The Big Green (21-17) will play Ivy League foe Columbia (25-23) in their first game of the tournament. The tournament will be hosted at Sachem Field in Hanover, N.H. this Saturday and Sunday.
The tournament will be played in a double-elimination format. The other first round match will feature defending champion East Carolina (48-23) taking on 4th seed Stony Brook (21-21) at 10 a.m. on Saturday.
Dartmouth's game will follow at noon, and the losers and winners will play off later in the day. The two squads with one loss will face off Sunday afternoon to decide the opponent for the undefeated team in the final.
The Big Green will likely see Columbia's Allison Buehler in the opener. Buehler hurled a complete game, two-hit shutout against the Big Green on April 14.
Dartmouth's two best pitchers over the season, Christine Quattrocchi '03 and Lisa Caruso '04 both pitched great games against Columbia in the series split in which Dartmouth lost 4-0 behind Quattrocchi and rebounded with a 3-0 victory with Caruso on the hill.
Though the history would suggest a pitcher's duel, Dartmouth has been on fire offensively this past week, scorching UMass-Lowell and Central Connecticut State for 35 runs in four games. The Big Green also set and then tied their season high for hits in a game with 15.
If the offensive tear continues, Columbia will be in trouble and even the Pirates of ECU will begin to quiver in their boots.
