After winning the Ivy League crown, the Dartmouth baseball team earned a bid to the first round of the NCAA tournament and will face the overall No. 4 seed University of North Carolina at 6 p.m. tonight in the Chapel Hill Regional in Chapel Hill, N.C.
"It would be the icing on the cake to go down there and win the regionals," co-captain Jack Monahan '09 said. "It would be great to make some noise and have people respect Ivy League baseball more than they do."
While the Big Green (27-16, 16-4 Ivy) gears up to face the Tar Heels (42-16, 19-10 ACC), the top seed in the regional bracket, the University of Kansas will prepare to play the University of Coastal Carolina in the other Chapel Hill matchup.
Coastal Carolina (46-14, 21-5 Big South) and Kansas (37-22, 15-12 Big 12) are the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds, respectively, in the Chapel Hill region. They will square off at 2 p.m. today.
"All of the teams are going to be good," Monahan said. "We are confident in ourselves and ready to play. It is not a situation in which we feel overmatched. We just need to step up to the challenge."
The regional brackets feature double-elimination competition, and the winners of each bracket earn a spot in one of the 16 best-of-three super regional match-ups, which begin June 5.
The road to the championship culminates in Omaha, Neb., where the remaining eight teams will battle for the NCAA crown from June 13 to 24. The University of Texas (41-13, 17-9 Big 12) is the overall No. 1 seed in the tournament.
Dartmouth, seeded last in the Chapel Hill region, earned an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament after beating Cornell in a best-of-three Ivy League Championship series in Hanover. The Big Green won the title for the first time in 22 years, and will make its sixth appearance of all time in the tournament.
"It's one of those things that we have all hoped to accomplish sometime here during our baseball career," Monahan said.
The last three Ivy League champions have been immediately eliminated from the NCAA tournament after losing their first two games.
Dartmouth lasted a little longer in the tournament in 1987, the team's most recent appearance.
After winning the Ivy championship that year, Dartmouth won its first game against the University of Michigan before losing two in a row to Fordham University and Rider University.
The Big Green made it to the College World Series in 1970 before being eliminated. Dartmouth has an all-time record of 6-10 in the NCAA tournament.
Head coach Bob Whalen is already familiar with the NCAA tournament. In 1986, he was an assistant coach for a University of Maine squad that made it all the way to the College World Series. Now, his Big Green sluggers must first face the obstacle of playing North Carolina.
The Tar Heels, whose pitching staff has struck out 586 batters this season, have hit 62 home runs in its 58 games this season. The Big Green offense, which has played 43 games, has blasted 43 homers.
Dustin Ackley is the lead slugger for the Tar Heels with a .399 batting average and a .759 slugging percentage.
The Big Green batting leader is Nick Santomauro '10, who hit .473 and had a .824 slugging percentage in Ivy play this season. He was recently named Ivy League Player of the Year and was a first team All-Ivy selection.
Ray Allen '09 and Jim Wren '10 also received first-team All-Ivy accolades. Allen and Wren lead the team by each hitting 44 RBIs this season. Allen also leads the team with 10 home runs.
Four Tar Heel pitchers post ERAs under 3.00, including Brian Moran at 2.09. His opponents have hit only .183 in his 32 appearances this season.
Kyle Hendricks '12 leads the Dartmouth pitching staff with the lowest ERA of 4.14. He has struck out 47 opposing sluggers this season. Co-captain Robert Young '10 trails him with an ERA of 4.57 and has picked off four baserunners.
"It's going to be the biggest game of my life," Young said about pitching in the tournament against highly ranked teams. "I'm just going to have to pitch my best, and it doesn't matter what color they wear."
Dartmouth face the winner of Friday's batchup between Costal Carolina and Kansas in its second game of the tournament on Saturday, depending on Friday's results.
"If we win [against North Carolina], we'll play Saturday against the winner of Carolina and Kansas," Monahan said. "If we lose, we play the loser of that game. If we lose again, we go home."
Coastal Carolina is ranked No. 20 by the newspaper Collegiate Baseball, and won the Big South Conference tournament to earn a berth in the regional.
Kansas, who went 13-12 against top-25 ranked teams this year, went 0-3 in the Big 12 Tournament, losing to Kansas State University, Texas and Baylor University.
The members of the Big Green team are eagerly anticipating the beginning of the tournament, Monahan said.
"We will probably play in front of more people than we have ever played in front of in our lives," he said. "It will be a good experience, and I think everyone is ready to get started."
