Dartmouth dropped two games to Louisiana State University this weekend, losing 5-2 on Friday night and 3-0 on Sunday afternoon. However, the Big Green pitching staff, led by Eddie Albert ’26, delivered strong performances against the defending national champions. Dartmouth also defeated against Grambling State University, 12-11, on Saturday evening.
In Friday's game, Dartmouth got out to an early lead over the Tigers. In the top of the second inning, Milo Suarez ’26 drew a walk, then advanced to second base on a wild pitch. Sam Andersen ’29 then singled to right field, allowing Suarez to cross home plate to put the Big Green up 1-0.
In the next inning, Taer Rodriguez ’26 drew another walk. Nico Bañez ’26 then grounded out to second, but Rodriguez was able to advance to second. Stefan Di Corrado ’28 doubled to left field and Rodriguez scored to bring the lead to 2-0.
“I got to a 3-1 count, so I had a little bit of an advantage as a hitter,” Di Corrado said. “I was excited when I saw I got down in the corner, and then it was really exciting to go up on LSU.”
Friday night starter Izzy Parsky ’29 held the Tigers scoreless until the fourth inning, when LSU’s Mason Braun scored on a fielder’s choice hit by Trent Caraway. Parsky pitched four innings for the Big Green, allowing only one earned run with three strikeouts and four walks. Head coach Blake McFadden said he was proud of Parsky’s outing.
“Being a freshman, and on that stage, he wasn’t scared of the moment, so I was very pleased with how he threw the baseball,” McFadden said. “He gave us a chance to win game one.”
Dartmouth held a 2-1 lead until the sixth inning, when LSU’s Derek Curiel hit a double to bring two Tigers home, putting LSU up 3-2. The Tigers scored again in the bottom of the seventh inning on a fielder’s choice, and again in the bottom of the eighth to bring the score to 5-2.
The Big Green had some base-runners in the later innings, but struggled to produce timely hits and was unable to regain the lead. The Big Green finished with three hits.
On Feb. 28, Dartmouth faced Grambling State and won 12-11. They brought their lead to 9-1 in the bottom of the fourth. Grambling scored three runs in the fifth, and four more in the next two innings. Dartmouth responded with three runs in the bottom of the eighth, led by hits from Andersen and Bañez, to bring the score to 12-8.
“We did a really good job extending the lead in the eighth inning to get us up four runs,” Di Corrado said.
Down by four runs going into the final inning, Grambling scored three times to bring their deficit to just one. With the tying run on second base and two outs, Trey Sejnoha ’27 struck out Grambling’s Chris Marcellus to give the Big Green the 12-11 win.
Dartmouth finished with 11 hits and six stolen bases in the game. McFadden said he was proud of the team’s success at the plate and on the basepaths in this game.
“Our guys were on time with the fastball, and they were able to hit mistakes thrown by Grambling’s pitching,” he said. “We were 6-for-6 on stolen bases against them, which the last time we did that at Dartmouth was probably quite some time ago.”
Despite the team’s impressive offensive performance against Grambling, the pitching staff struggled, giving up 10 hits and 12 walks. McFadden said that walks were a major issue in the game.
“We gave up 12 free bases, so we need to clean up that aspect of things,” he said.
On Sunday, the Big Green faced the LSU Tigers again, this time losing 3-0.
Starting pitcher Albert put up a very impressive performance, pitching seven innings, posting eight strikeouts and just one walk. His start earned him the honor of Ivy League Pitcher of the Week as he reached a milestone of 100 career strikeouts this past weekend.
The only earned run Albert allowed was a home run from LSU’s Jake Brown in the bottom of the first. The Tigers scored another run in the bottom of the fourth because of a fielding error from left fielder Gus Begert ’29, but this run was unearned. McFadden was very complimentary of Albert’s outing.
“One of the biggest things that stood out to me about Eddie is he was constantly in advantage counts, and he pitched extremely well by getting ahead in the strike zone,” he said.
Albert credited his teammates’ strong performances on Friday night and pitching coach Jaren Hunter’s pitchcalling for helping him succeed on Sunday.
“The guys on Friday did a really good job of limiting the LSU offense, so that was a confidence booster for me going into Sunday,” he said. “Coach Hunter really called a great game as well.”
Nate Kugler ’28 came in for Albert in the eighth inning. The Tigers’ third run came in the bottom of this inning, when Brown doubled to allow Curiel, who reached base on an error, to score. Kugler finished with one strikeout, and the game ended 3-0.
While the Big Green did not score, McFadden noted that the team’s approach at the plate was admirable, especially given LSU’s top-tier pitching.
“When you’re going up against 93 to 96 [miles per hour] every night, it’s going to be challenging, but at the end of the day, we hit some baseballs really hard,” he said. “I thought we did a better job of not chasing the baseball out of the zone.”
Throughout the weekend, the Dartmouth pitching staff allowed only five earned runs and gave up only eight walks, while recording 14 strikeouts.
The Big Green will go to Annapolis, Md., to face the United States Naval Academy for a four-game series.
“Navy’s 8-3 on the year, so they’ve found the win column quite a bit,” McFadden said. “I’m excited for our guys to go compete against the team with such a good record and see where the chips fall.”
