While Dartmouth has appeared in six straight Ivy League Championships, winning titles in 2008 and 2009, the past two years have ended in defeat, driving the senior class to go out on top.
"I'd be lying if I said that the outcome of the past two years wasn't in the back of the guys' minds this year," said co-captain Jeff Keller '14, who has yet to win an Ivy Championship. "I think everyone is just excited and ready to go get after it."
The Big Green (32-7, 15-5 Ivy), who beat Columbia (24-19, 16-4 Ivy) twice in the regular season, will play in the Ivy championship for the third straight year.
"There's no doubt that hosting the Ivy Championship was one of our goals earlier in the year," Keller said. "But there's certainly some positives to playing it on the road."
Columbia's stadium, with its turf field and shallow center field, is very similar to Red Rolfe Field.
"I definitely think it's helpful that we've already had early success at their field this year," co-captain Cole Sulser '12 said.
The last time the Big Green hosted the title series was 2009, when it beat Cornell University in three games.
The Big Green pitchers believe they have already accumulated a wealth of information regarding the Lions' hitters' tendencies from their early season series.
"I think our pitchers have a good idea of what they want to do against their lineup," he said.
Dartmouth's pitchers must keep the ball in the zone and rely on the defense for ground ball outs.
"If they are able to keep the ball low in the zone, and especially if hitters are grounding to second or the first base side, that's a sign that the balls are coming out of the pitchers' hands well," he said.
While Columbia's lineup might have improved since Dartmouth's early season series, their hitters' tendencies have remained constant.
"That's something we saw when we first played them," pitcher Michael Johnson '13 said. "We try not to worry too much about how they're hitting, but we definitely try to incorporate what their weaknesses might be."
Unfortunately, the Big Green will not have the same familiarity with the pitchers.
Dartmouth has yet to face Columbia junior David Speer, one of the Ivy League's best pitchers, who boasts a 1.83 ERA and six wins in nine starts, including two shutouts.
"We didn't see their number one pitcher, we only saw their number two," Keller said. "So in that sense, there's no advantage to playing them earlier."
On March 31, Dartmouth beat Columbia's number two pitcher, senior Tim Giel, 3-2. Giel entered the season as Baseball America's preseason Ivy League pitcher of the year.
While the Big Green will not know the order of Columbia's pitchers until the start of the series, Dartmouth must get off to a fast start.
"We have great pitching and they have great pitching," Keller said. "The determining factor of the series will be how our offense plays."
Anchoring that offense is Keller and Dustin Selzer '14, who, along with pitcher Mitch Horacek '14, have fallen up short each year despite great regular season success.
"All three of us have really been focusing toward this weekend for a while," Keller said.
The championship series will mark the last time that Sulser and his fellow seniors put on the Big Green uniform.
"It's definitely a little different knowing that it may be my last time as a Dartmouth baseball player, but I think everyone is just excited," Sulser said.
In addition to senior leadership, the Big Green will look to rookie Joe Purritano '16, whose late season surge has him tied for the team lead in home runs (5) and second in RBI's (30), to provide depth in the bottom half of the lineup.
Dartmouth comes off of a program-best 32 season wins, including a sweep of Harvard University last weekend.
"I think that it certainly helps and it's good to have confidence, but at the end of the day, it's another good team that's been playing well recently," Keller said. "All bets are off when you get to a three-game series."
The championship series kicks off Saturday at noon, with game two following at 3:15 p.m. If necessary, game three will be played on Sunday at 1 p.m.
