Baseball Takes on Brown to Open Ivy Play

Playing its first home game since a season-ending loss to Stony Brook last year, the Columbia baseball team faces Brown and Yale at Andy Coakley Field for its Ivy opening weekend.

Despite past Ivy struggles, the Lions are seeking to improve their standing in the Lou Gehrig Division just as they did a season ago. Coming off a 2006 campaign in which Columbia finished 6-14 and won just two of its final 13 games, the Light Blue finished 2007 10-10 and took five of its last eight games.

This year, with the team’s two best pitchers about to graduate, the bar is set even higher.

The Lions are coming off a 10-5 loss to 25th-ranked St. John’s University. After holding an early 3-1 lead, freshman pitcher Max Lautman entered the game and surrendered five runs in the fourth and fifth innings.

Friday’s games against Brown should provide a good test of where the team stands in the league. The Bears are the defending Ivy champions and beat Columbia both times last season in Providence. This far into the season, they are 6-8. The two teams have one common opponent—Duke.

The Lions were not competitive against the Blue Devils for much of the series, but did nearly claim a victory in the season opener. The Bears, after leading for almost the entire game, fell 7-6 in 10 innings.

Brown’s strength lies in its offense, where it is hitting .320 collectively. While the team has hit only three home runs all season, just one of eight starting position players has an average below .290. Freshman catcher Matthew Colantonio leads the team with a .478 average and has gotten on base nearly 55 percent of the time.

The Lions’ pitching staff has been hit hard for much of the season, though the rotation is likely more set now that league play has started. Even so, a team ERA greater than eight is cause for concern.

One advantage for the Lions could come later in the game. The Bears’ best relievers, seniors Anthony Vita and Peter Moskal, are both right-handed. Meanwhile, Columbia’s top hitter, sophomore Jason Banos, is left-handed.

Saturday’s doubleheader with Yale gives Columbia a chance for interleague bragging rights, as both Yale and Brown belong to the Rolfe Division. The Bulldogs are coming off of an 8-12 league campaign and have played more games than any other Ivy team this season, entering the game at 6-14.

As with Brown, Columbia shares with Yale an opponent that plays in the state of North Carolina. The Elis traveled to Davidson earlier this season and fell to the Wildcats 4-2 and 7-6. The Lions were scheduled to play on consecutive days in Davidson but the second game was cancelled. They fell 3-2 in the first contest.

In Yale, Columbia finds a team whose pitching staff has struggled almost as much as its own. Outside of closer Steve Gilman, a senior who has not allowed a run in eight appearances, nearly every Yale pitcher has struggled this year. The two with the most innings pitched, senior Brian Irving and junior Brandon Josselyn, have earned run averages below five, but opposing batters are hitting .305 against Irving. As a staff, the Bulldogs have an ERA of 6.90.

Neither Brown’s nor Yale’s ERA is as high as Columbia’s 8.04, and one player likely to challenge whoever starts for the Lions is junior catcher Ryan Lavarnway. Lavarnway is hitting .397 and has already hit eight home runs this season—just one less than Columbia and Brown combined. Eleven of his 25 hits have been extra base hits, and he has more than one fourth of his team’s runs batted in.

Columbia’s staff has a chance to slow one of the league’s hottest hitters starting at noon on Saturday, just as they will play their first game against the defending Ivy champions at noon on Friday.