Final Weekend of Regular Season Yields Dartmouth as Ivy Championship Host

Although Columbia (20-24, 15-5 Ivy) and Dartmouth (24-14, 15-5) clinched the Lou Gehrig and Red Rolfe Division—respectively—on Saturday, there was still plenty of excitement in the final weekend of Ivy League play. Most of that excitement had to do with figuring out which team would host the Ivy League championship series.

Dartmouth—by nature of a tiebreaker—will host the Lions this weekend. This will be the first time that the teams, whose most famous alumni now carry the namesake for each division, will face each other in the championship series.

The Big Green was ahead in the overall standings by one game going into its final series against Harvard. In its first three games of the weekend, the Big Green was able to keep the Crimson offense at bay, allowing no more than four runs and winning all three games.

In the final game of the series, Dartmouth looked to be in prime position to complete the four-game sweep and secure home-field advantage for the Ivy League championship series, as it was up 8-0 going into the top of the eighth inning. In that inning, the Crimson posted two runs to cut the lead to what should have been a safe six runs. In the top of the ninth, however, the Big Green brought in Bobby Steinsdoerfer who gave up six runs—five of them earned—after facing six batters and recording no outs. Kyle Zeis was brought in with runners at the corners to try to stop the bleeding with the score tied, but two wild pitches later, the Crimson took the lead for good.

With the Dartmouth loss and a Columbia sweep of Penn, the Lions moved into a first-place tie with the Big Green. The first tiebreaker to determine home field advantage is the record between the two teams, which did not yield a result, as the Light Blue and Big Green each won a game when they met in Hanover for a doubleheader on April 7. The tiebreaker, then, would be determined based on which of the teams had a better record against the third-best team in the league. This would depend on the results of the other games in the league.

Yale had a 9-6 record—the third best in the league—going into the final weekend of play, and stood 1 1/2 games behind Dartmouth in the Rolfe Division since it needed to make up a postponed game against Penn. The Bulldogs would need to win out in their final five games and Dartmouth would have to lose at least one game in order for the Bulldogs to at least tie for the division crown.

There was no need to figure out the winner of the Rolfe Division, however, as the Bulldogs were steamrolled in their four-game series against Brown. In the first game of the series, Brown senior Alex Silverman had the best start of his career, striking out 16 Bulldogs en route to a two-hit shutout. With this exceptional start in his final collegiate pitching performance, Silverman earned Ivy League co-pitcher of the week honors.
In the second game of the series, Yale had its back against the wall, as it held only an outside chance of winning the Rolfe Division. Knowing this, the Bulldogs jumped to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first, but that would be their only lead of the entire series. It would also be short-lived as the Bears plated two in the bottom of the inning, three in the second, and two more in the third.

Still vying for the third-best record in the Ivy League in front of the home crowd on senior day, the Bulldogs performed even worse than they had the day before. Brown pitchers Will Weidig and Mark Gormley threw consecutive shutouts as the Bears completed the four-game sweep with a 7-0 victory in the first same and 9-0 shellacking in the second.

With a three-game deficit in the Gehrig Division, Princeton needed a lot of help from Columbia in order to compete for the division title. The Tigers opened the weekend of Ivy League baseball in Ithaca against Cornell, and in a game that was decided in its final frame, the Big Red prevailed, 6-5. Now the Tigers’ division title chances were seriously in jeopardy, but unlike Yale, the Princeton baseball team responded—and with force. In the second game of the doubleheader, the Tigers scored 19 unanswered runs until the Big Red plated a quiet run of its own in the bottom of the ninth.

By the time the series shifted to New Jersey on Sunday, the Tigers knew they had already been eliminated from Gehrig Division contention, but it wasn’t obvious from their play. In the first game of the doubleheader on Sunday, Princeton senior Steve Miller pitched the game of his career, as he no-hit the Big Red en route to a 3-2 victory. Miller allowed 7 walks and two unearned runs, as he pitched the 13th no-hitter in Princeton history, taking Ivy League co-pitcher of the week for the first time this season.

In the final league game for each of these teams this season, Princeton defeated Cornell 6-3, capturing the third-best record in the league. Over the weekend, Princeton infielder Spencer Lucian went on a tear, going 6 for 10 with 5 RBI, seven runs scored, and four extra-base hits—including two home runs—earning Ivy League player of the week.

The tiebreaker to decide the host for the Ivy League championship series is based on which team—Columbia or Dartmouth—had a better record against the third-place team in the league, which after this weekend’s action was Princeton. The Lions split a four-game series with the Tigers, while the Big Green swept a two-game series, thus earning the right to host the championship series.

Columbia and Dartmouth will meet for a best-of-three series on Saturday at Red Rolfe Field in Hanover to play a doubleheader, with a third game to be played on Sunday in the event of a split in the first two games.