Dartmouth entered the championship series after winning the North Division by one game over Harvard. After losing 4-0 in game one on Saturday, the Big Green bounced back to take game two 5-1, forcing Sunday's deciding game.
"We left it all out on the field today and that's all we could do," Ashley Gleason '09 said after Sunday's game. "We were disappointed with how it ended, but we came a very long way this season and we're happy with that."
Cornell came into the championship after losing only three league games all season on the way to an 18-3 Ivy record and an impressive 42-11 overall record. One of these losses, though, came against the Big Green, a 7-5 extra-inning Dartmouth victory in early April.
Game one was defined by the pitching of Cornell starter Elizabeth Dalrymple, who pitched a complete-game shut-out while allowing only four Big Green hits and striking out seven. Dartmouth batters hit just .160 against Dalrymple, whose record improved to an astonishing 18-3.
"We hit the ball really hard against [Dalrymple]," Gleason said. "[The hits] were just right at people."
Cornell started the scoring in the bottom of the second inning. A lead-off single, a sacrifice bunt and an RBI double scored the first run for the Big Red. Two batters later, an RBI single brought in the second run of the game.
The Big Red added runs in the third and fifth innings for the 4-0 win.
Dartmouth played as the home team for game two, where the Big Green faced elimination with a loss.
The team had faced similar pressures when it staved off elimination in back-to-back games against Harvard to clinch the division last week.
Cornell got on the board early in game two, loading the bases and then scoring on a sacrifice fly.
Dartmouth responded in the bottom of the inning as Alyssa Parker '10 singled in Kirsten Costello '10, who had walked to start the inning.
The Big Green tacked on two more in the bottom of the second inning, which saw triples from Christy Autin '10 and Nikki Yee '10.
Dartmouth scored one more run in both the fourth and sixth innings.
Meanwhile, starting pitcher Devin Lindsay '11 shut down the Cornell bats, scattering three hits among the remaining six innings to earn the win, her ninth on the year.
The win set up the decisive game three Sunday afternoon.
For game three, both teams sent their big guns to the mound, as Lindsay pitched for Dartmouth, while Dalrymple, the winner of game one, pitched for Cornell.
Both teams were scoreless through the first three innings of play.
Parker started the scoring for Dartmouth with a solo home run to left field in the top of the fourth inning.
Cornell answered in the bottom of the fourth. With two outs, Meg Risica hit a rocket that barely stayed fair down the left-field line for a double. The next batter, Jessy Berkey, smoked a single to left to score Risica and tie the game.
Dartmouth went down quietly in the top of the fifth inning with a strikeout, a ground-out and a foul-out.
The Cornell bats came to life. In the bottom of the fifth, Lindsay surrendered a one-out walk, followed by a single to put two runners on base. Menaker then broke the 1-1 tie with a blast over the right-field wall.
The Big Red added two more on solo shots in the sixth inning to take a 6-1 lead.
Dartmouth threatened in its final at-bat, loading the bases with two out, but Yee hit into a fielder's choice to end the game and the Big Green's playoff run.
"There was nothing we did -- one person or the whole team -- that decided the game," Gleason said. "It just happened to go their way."
