Dartmouth baseball clinched the Red Rolfe Division title and the home field advantage for next weekend's Ivy League championship against Gehrig Division winner Columbia after three wins against Harvard this weekend.
If the Big Green (24-14, 15-5 Ivy) can top the Lions (20-24, 15-5 Ivy) next week in Hanover, Dartmouth will earn its first league title and would secure Dartmouth an automatic bid to the NCAA postseason tournament. A victory would give Dartmouth its first league title since the 1986-87 season, when it competed in the Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League that included Army and Navy. The Ancient Eight began playing an Ivy-only schedule in 1992.
The last eight teams remaining in the initial 64-team field in the NCAA tournament will travel to Omaha, Neb., for the College World Series.
The Big Green traveled to Cambridge, Mass., for the Saturday doubleheader against Harvard (10-30, 8-12 Ivy), winning 7-3 in game one and 5-4 in game two.
Brown (19-24, 9-11 Ivy) shut out Yale (10-24-1, 9-10 Ivy) in their first game Saturday in Providence, R.I., ending the Bulldogs chances for the Rolfe division crown..
Dartmouth returned to Hanover on Sunday to finish the regular season, taking the first game, 8-4, before blowing an eight-run lead in the late innings of the nightcap to lose, 10-8.
For the Big Green, the first place finish represents the completion of a worst-to-first turnaround. Last season, Dartmouth finished last in the Ivy League with a dismal record of 8-29-1, 5-15 Ivy.
"Nobody was happy with last year," Jason Blydell '08 said. "There was a lot of disappointment, but we knew if we worked hard in the off-season and did the things we needed to do we could come back from it."
After Sunday's game, head coach Bob Whalen said the biggest difference between last year's team and this year's squad was talent.
"We didn't have enough in our arsenal last year," he said. "We just didn't have enough guys who were ready to perform at the level they're performing at."
The 2007 season was marked by struggles all over the field. As a team, Dartmouth batted .261, while the pitching staff accumulated a 7.04 earned run average. Opponents were one run shy of scoring twice as many runs on the year as the Big Green, outscoring Dartmouth 267 to 134.
Compare those numbers to the 2008 season: With two regular season games remaining, Dartmouth has scored 291 runs and is hitting an Ivy League-best .319. The team ERA has fallen considerably too, with Dartmouth pitchers averaging 5.74 earned runs for every nine innings pitched.
Chicago Cubs fans have a saying, "Wait 'til next year." For fans of the Big Green, waiting 'til next year paid off.
"The biggest thing that changed was our attitude," Jason McManis '08 said. "It was a matter of making up our minds that we weren't going to be the same team we were last year."
McManis commented that the Dartmouth players knew very early in the season that this team was special, particularly during the Big Green's spring training trip.
"[When] we started out, we didn't have a great record or anything, but you could tell," he said. "We were swinging the bats like we haven't swung them in the four years we've been here."
Dartmouth went 3-6 on the spring trip to IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., facing several Mid-Western schools, including Big Ten opponents Ohio State and Northwestern. The biggest win of the trip came against Northwestern, currently in sixth in the Big Ten, in a 6-5 victory in which Dartmouth connected for 18 hits. The win capped off the spring trip and propelled the Big Green into its conference schedule on a high note.
"Coming into league play we just showed up the first weekend and did the things we were doing on the spring trip, playing solid baseball," Blydell said.
Whalen credited the maturity of the team as the driving force behind its success. Only three players graduated after last year's season, and Dartmouth features eight seniors on the roster -- four of whom start every game in the field and four pitchers.
"Almost every one of our seniors is having his best year," he said. "That kind of maturity really helps because you can't buy experience."
Three of the four senior position players, Blydell, Erik Bell '08 and Damon Wright '08 are hitting above .300. Wright is having a career year, leading the team in hitting at .400, and tied for first on the team with seven home runs and 37 runs batted in.
"I thought we had a chance to have a good team, I really did," Whalen said. "Can you imagine that some guys like Damon are going to make that type of a change from what they did last year to this year? You certainly know that they're capable of it, but you look at almost every single one of our regulars and they've made significant, significant improvements."
Whalen also compared this year's team to some of the past division champions that he has coached.
"This team reminded me of a couple of our other teams in terms of their toughness," he said. "You look at the way some of the games that we've won, right from the beginning of the year winning 1-0 at Navy, we've won a lot of one and two-run games and had to play with poise at the end, and I admire that kind of toughness. Probably that one single thing reminds me of some of the other teams we've had."
Dartmouth's 15-5 conference record is its best since 2004, the last time Dartmouth won the Rolfe Division. Whalen, in his 19th season coaching the Big Green, has won four division titles, but an Ivy League title has remained elusive.
The Big Green traveled to Cambridge knowing that three wins was all it would take to shore up the division title, and, because of Yale's loss, it took even less.
In the first game, Dartmouth and Harvard exchanged runs in several innings as the Big Green fought to hold onto a lead. Jim Wren '10 singled through the right side to break a 3-3 tie in the fifth inning and Dartmouth added three more runs in the sixth to solidify the victory.
Russell Young '08 earned his fifth win of the season in his sixth complete game. He leads the team this year with 57.2 innings pitched and boasts a 3.43 earned run average, third best on the Big Green.
The Big Green took a five-run lead in the second game of the doubleheader, but the Crimson closed the deficit to one with a four-run eighth inning.
Kyle Zeis '08 entered the game in the seventh after starter Jake Pruner '11 walked two Crimson batters, and Zeis worked to get the last out of the frame. But in the eighth Zeis gave up a three-run home run to Harvard freshman Tyler Albright that brought the Crimson within one.
Ryan Smith '11 came in to finish the eighth and ninth innings. He earned his seventh save of the season, breaking the team record previously held by Jonathan Miller '00.
At the plate for Dartmouth, Nick Santomauro '10 had a two-run homer to left field in the first inning. He leads the team with seven home runs this year.
Both teams returned to Hanover for a doubleheader Sunday to complete the home-and-home weekend. For Dartmouth, home field advantage in the Ivy League championship was still on line.
The Big Green came through in the first contest as Wright went 4-4 with three doubles and an RBI. Dartmouth scored in five of its six innings at the plate.
Robert Young '10 earned his fourth win of the season. He was taken out with one out in the seventh inning. He struck out three and issued no walks, giving up four runs.
The second game was in the Big Green's hands until the ninth inning. A six-run fourth inning gave the Big Green an 8-0 lead coming into the eighth. Then things got ugly.
Bobby Steinsdoerfer '07 replaced Chase Carpenter '08 on the mound with no outs in the ninth inning. He hit two batters, issued a walk, threw two wild pitches and gave up two hits. He was pulled in favor of Zeis before getting an out.
Zeis fared no better, throwing two wild pitches and allowing Harvard to score two more runs. By the time the dust settled, the Crimson was up 10-8, and took home the win three outs later.
The outcome of the game, however, did not matter in terms of Dartmouth's position in the Ivy League championship contest next week. According to Whalen, he was informed after the game that, although a Columbia win and a Dartmouth loss would give the teams the same Ivy record, the tiebreakers were in Dartmouth's favor.
Officially, the Ivy League office will release who has home field advantage in the conference championship series Monday.
Whalen opted to replace his starting lineup in light of this information, inserting some players who have not seen much time on the field this season.
"At that point I wanted to reward some kids because they've been great, they really have, they've worked really hard and they've been really good about things," he said.
The Big Green has two non-conference games this week, leaving just one day of practice before the Ivy championship this weekend against Columbia.
Dartmouth will travel to face-off against the University of Hartford on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday the Big Green will wrap up the regular season against Boston College in Hanover. Both games start at 3:00 p.m.
