Baseball sweeps to force one-game playoff against Yale at home

Thanks to a grand slam and 14 runs in two games, the baseball team swept Harvard University on Tuesday to keep hopes alive for its seventh consecutive Red Rolfe Division title.The Big Green beat the Crimson on its senior day 9-0 in the first seven-inning game before finishing with a 5-3 victory in the nine-inning game later that afternoon.Playing from behind this season, first baseman and co-captain Dustin Selzer ’14 said, builds a “never give up, never quit” mentality.Since the team’s current seven-game streak began April 20, every game, co-captain Jeff Keller ’14 said, has been a “do or die” situation for Dartmouth, which backed itself into a corner by opening Ivy play with a 4-6 record, forcing a perfect finish if the team hoped to return to the Ivy Championship Series.“This is one of the scrappiest teams I have ever been a part of,” Keller said. “We’ve basically been eliminated a couple of times this season when we thought we weren’t going to have a chance, and every time we’ve just scraped by. This is a team that is used to being with its back against the wall, and we’re continuing to get better, and I like the way we’re playing right now.”In the first game on Tuesday, the starting pitchers, freshman Nick Gruener and Mike Concato ’17, battled on the mound and held the opposing lineups scoreless for five innings.The Big Green broke through in the sixth, tallying nine runs on four hits and cycling through the lineup in the frame.Gruener allowed Matt Parisi ’15, Keller and Nick Ruppert ’16 to load the bases on a walk, single and hit by pitch. A single by Thomas Roulis ’15 brought in both Parisi and Keller, leaving two men on until Selzer reached on a fielder’s choice, bringing in Ruppert.Still with no outs, Roulis on second and Selzer on first, a single by Joe Purritano ’16 loaded the bases again. Nick Lombardi ’15 forced in a run on a four-pitch walk. A fielder’s choice for Patterson scored Selzer but left Purritano out at third. Parisi was hit by a pitch in his second at bat of the inning, reloading the bases. Harvard pulled Gruener in favor of a relief pitcher as Keller walked into the box.Keller crushed a grand slam out of the park on a full count, bringing in the final four runs of the inning to give Dartmouth a 9-0 advantage.“I had fouled a couple off beforehand, and I’d gotten out in front of them and they were up a little bit, so I was hoping to get a fastball down in the zone that I could get on top of, and that’s exactly what I got,” Keller said.Mike Concato, true to his dependability this season, went the distance, throwing just 82 pitches and striking out three over seven innings.“You could tell from the first inning that Mike Concato had his good stuff, and when Mike has his good stuff, he’s tough to hit,” Selzer said. “We knew that at some point we were going to break through and hopefully get a couple of runs for him because he was kind of dominating their hitters.”Dartmouth jumped out to an early lead in game two when Purritano tallied the first run of the game in the second after being walked to start the inning. Harvard knotted the score in the bottom of the third, forcing head coach Bob Whalen to swap pitcher Chris England ’14 in favor of Duncan Robinson ’16 in the fourth. Despite the fresh arm, the Crimson took a 2-1 lead before the Big Green could close out the inning.The short-lived Crimson lead came to a screeching halt in the next half-inning when Parisi, singling to get on base with one out, again started a critical set of at-bats for Dartmouth. With runners on the corners and two outs, back-to-back singles by Roulis and Selzer scored both Parisi and Ruppert before a double from Purritano plated Roulis and Selzer to cap the four-run inning. Dartmouth retook the lead 5-2.Robinson continued his strong performance, stifling the Crimson hitters and only running into trouble in the bottom of the eighth when an unearned run cut Dartmouth’s lead to two. After allowing the run, Robinson struck out junior shortstop Jake McGuiggan on three pitches to strand a Harvard runner at third and end the threat.“Duncan’s been phenomenal all year,” Keller said. “He’s pitched in every situation imaginable. We knew that with one game to win, he was going to be in the game at some point and it was probably going to be early and that’s what happened and he did a great job.”Robinson pitched the final six innings, surrendering only four hits while striking out five.After a midweek nonconference game against Siena College on Wednesday, the Big Green play a one-game playoff in Hanover this weekend against Yale University to determine the Red Rolfe Division champion. Dartmouth went 3-1 against the Bulldogs when they visited Hanover earlier in April.