Last weekend, the baseball team took three of its first four Ivy League games, recovering from some poor play over spring break that led to an 0-12 start. On Sunday and Monday, that reversal of fortunes became a full-on winning streak, as the Bears swept visiting non-division foes Princeton and Cornell to run their Ivy League record to 7-1 (7-13 overall).
The Bears won games every way they could, coasting to a pair of wins and pulling out two others in extra innings. On Sunday, Brown handled Princeton 7-1 in the opener and followed that with an 8-7 win over the Tigers in 10 innings on a wild pitch.
The pattern against Cornell on Monday was similar. Brown breezed to a 9-2 victory in the first game before coming from behind to win 5-4 in another 10-inning affair to end the Ivy League "weekend," which had been pushed back a day due to Saturday's rain.
"We've got to get ourselves off to a good start (against non-division teams) because we know Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale are tough, and every one of those games is a dogfight," said Head Coach Marek Drabinski.
Princeton came into Aldrich Field without an Ivy win, and in the first game of the day, they played the part of Ivy doormat well. Bears starter Bryan Tews '07 went all seven innings, allowing just one run on 117 pitches to even his record at 2-2. He then turned his attention to fielding and hitting for the final three games, hitting second in the order. Tews leads the Bears with a .434 average and 30 1/3 innings pitched.
"My goal when I go out there is to get at least five (innings) and battle through to get all seven," he said. "Playing the seven-inning games first (in the Ivy League doubleheaders), it's big for the team if you don't have to use your bullpen in the first game of the weekend."
Paul Christian '06 led Brown's balanced offensive against Cornell, going 2-for-2 with two runs scored and three RBIs in game one. With a home run in the fourth inning, the first of two on the weekend, he climbed ahead of Ravi Malick '96 for second place on Brown's career home run list. With just four more, he'll pass record-holder John King '79.
"(The record is) not something that I really think about," Christian said. "I approach all my at-bats the same way. ... The home runs are going to come."
In the second game, starter Shaun McNamara '06 was snake-bitten by a pair of errors behind him in the fourth inning, giving up four runs in the frame as the Tigers took a 6-2 lead. He got out of that jam, but loaded the bases with no outs in the fifth and was lifted for Rob Hallberg '08.
Hallberg's struggles over spring break were indicative of a terrible week for the Bears' relief corps, but his strong outings this weekend were similarly representative of the bullpen's rebound performance. In this instance, Hallberg stranded two of the three runners he inherited from McNamara, then threw two more scoreless innings before giving way to lefty Ethan Burton '06 and Jeff Dietz '08, who picked up the win. Combined, the three gave up just two hits and two walks in six innings of relief, striking out six.
"Everyone was kind of riding (the relief pitchers) the whole season, but they really came up huge and probably saved us in two games this weekend," McNamara said.
With the bullpen holding the line, the potent Brown lineup had all the time it needed to string together enough runs to come back. In the bottom of the sixth, the Bears took advantage of four walks by Princeton starter Eric Walz and a fielding error by shortstop Dan DeGeorge to plate four runs. In the bottom of the ninth, Dietz' sacrifice fly scored Tews to tie the game, and a wild pitch in the bottom of the 10th brought home Matt Nuzzo '09, who scored the winning run.
"Coming from behind is something we love to do, and it's especially good now that we're entering intra-division play," McNamara said.
The next day was eerily similar. In the opening game, starter Ethan Silverstein '07 stifled the Cornell bats for 5 2/3 innings, allowing two unearned runs on four hits and two walks to pick up his first win of the season. Cornell rallied in the sixth when the inning was prolonged by a catcher's interference call, but Dietz came in and promptly got a pop-up to end the inning.
Christian hit his second home run of the weekend in that game, with catcher Devin Thomas '07 - sporting a freshly shaved mohawk - adding a dinger to make up for the interference call. Shortstop Robert Papenhause '09 did some atoning of his own, going 2-for-3 with two runs scored after making the two errors that aided the Princeton rally against McNamara the day before.
The second of the two Cornell games was an exciting back-and-forth battle, finally ending in a sweep for Brown when Thomas brought in the winning run in the bottom of the 10th with a bloop single to left. The catcher went 3-for-5 with two RBIs in the game, while centerfielder and cleanup hitter Eric Larson '07 emerged from a 1-for-9 weekend slump to go 3-for-4 with a walk, a run scored and an RBI.
Despite Larson's strong hitting, no play of his was more important than his rifle throw from centerfield in the top of the eighth to save a run. With runners on first and second and two outs, Larson needed to make a perfect strike from center to turn a potential RBI single into the last out of the inning. He did just that, hitting Thomas on one hop to keep the game tied.
After starter Alex Silverman '08 battled his way through 4 1/3 innings, giving up three runs, the bullpen again starred. The combination of Anthony Vita '07, Robert Dykehouse '07 - pitching in his first collegiate game after being converted to a pitcher on Wednesday - Burton and Hallberg held Cornell to one unearned run on two hits and four walks in 5 2/3 innings. Hallberg picked up his first win of the year for his effort.
With their eight games against the teams from the Ivy League's inferior Lou Gehrig Division in the books, the Bears can now look forward to Red Rolfe Division neighbors, beginning with a pair of doubleheaders with Dartmouth this weekend. But the team first has a game against Sacred Heart University today starting at 3:30 p.m. and a doubleheader against the University of Rhode Island Wednesday starting at 2 p.m. While the non-conference games present an opportunity to rest players during an eight-day, 11-game stretch, Drabinski mentioned that the rainouts from last week already gave his players some rest.
"The one thing I'm trying to create with these guys is the mindset that the weekday games are not just a vacation," Drabinski said. "We're not just going to come out and have a little picnic just because Sacred Heart and URI are coming to town."
