Live Stats: Dartmouth / Harvard (TBA) I 2011 Roster I 2011 Schedule and Results I 2011 Statistics
STORY LINE: The Big Red will head off for its first Ivy League road trip of the year to meet the South Division favorites when it travels to Dartmouth for a doubleheader on Friday, April 8 at 2 p.m. before heading to Ivy unbeaten Harvard on Saturday, April 9 at 12:30 p.m. In winning the last two Ivy titles, Cornell has had to top both the Big Green (2009) and the Crimson (2010) in the Ivy League championship series to advance to the NCAA tournament.
ABOUT CORNELL: The Big Red is off to an 14-12-1 start with a revamped lineup, as the two-time defending Ivy League champion continues conference play with a 7-1 record in its last eight games. Senior Marissa Amiraian is batting .370 with 18 runs while spearheading the Big Red at the top of the lineup, while sophomore Kristen Towne is hitting .358 with a team-high six home runs and 23 RBI. In the circle, two-time Ivy League Pitcher of the Year Elizabeth Dalrymple is 8-3 with a 0.77 ERA and 102 strikeouts in 91.1 innings of work. Head coach Dick Blood has won 529 career games at Cornell and five Ivy League titles.
ABOUT DARTMOUTH: Dartmouth brought a 7-12 record (2-2 Ivy) into a midweek home doubleheader against Sacred Heart. Hillary Baker leads the Big Green with a .444 average and is also 4-4 with a 4.56 ERA in the circle. In all, five regulars are batting .300 or better entering the weekend, with Noelle Ramirez batting .317 with three home runs and 14 RBI. The Big Green is hitting .265 as a team and fielding at a .946 clip. Dartmouth pitching is allowing opponents to hit .314, allowing 165 hits in 124.1 innings of work. The team opened Ivy play with a doubleheader sweep of Columbia (9-4 and 1-0), before dropping both ends of a doubleheader to Penn (10-8 and 9-8). First-year head coach Rachel Hanson spent five seasons as head coach at the University of Dallas.
THE SERIES: Cornell leads the all-time series 34-7 and swept a doubleheader in Ithaca a season ago, taking 5-2 and 5-3 victories.
ABOUT HARVARD: The Crimson bring an 18-10 overall mark (4-0 Ivy) into the weekend and have a six-game win streak. Harvard is hitting .290 as a team with Ellen Macadam leading the way at .441 with six home runs. Freshman Kasey Lange (.366, 11 2B, 3 HR, 28 RBI) and Whitney Shaw (.350, 6 2B, 4 HR, 18 RBI) also rank among the Ivy leaders in hitting. Where Harvard excels is in the circle, with junior Rachel Brown posting a 12-4 record with a 1.69 ERA and 178 strikeouts in 103.1 innings of work and freshman Laura Ricciardone going 6-3 with a 1.91 ERA in 69.2 innings of work. Head coach Jenny Allard won the 400th game of her illustrious career earlier this season, her 17th in the dugout for Harvard. She has won four Ivy titles and led the program to three NCAA tournament berths.
THE SERIES: Harvard has a narrow 22-21 edge in the all-time series, with the Big Red going 3-2 last season. Cornell won the Ivy League championship series a year ago, winning a tight 2-1 series.
HOME SWEET HOME: Cornell is 53-11 at home over the last four seasons, including an impressive 34-6 mark in league action at Niemand•Robison Field (includes a 2-0 mark at Ithaca College). The Big Red is 11-2 at home in its last 13 games, outscoring opponents 77-31 over that span.
IVY STANDARD: Since moving to a 20-game Ivy League slate in 2007, the Big Red has posted a 66-18 record in league play overall and a 34-6 record at home.
THE RACE FOR THREE: The Big Red has had some optimistic signs it can compete for the title again in 2011 with a frontloaded schedule over the first month and a half, opening the year with a 14-12-1 record. Seven of its 11 losses have come by three runs or less.
30 WINS A STAPLE: Cornell won 37 games a season ago, the fifth straight year and the 13th time in the last 14 years it has hit the 30-win plateau. The lone year it didn't reach that mark during that stretch was in 2005 when it went 29-17-1. To put that in perspective, no other team in the conference has an active streak of 30-win seasons among Ivy teams, and while Cornell has done it 13 times in the last 14 years, the other seven Ancient Eight schools have reached that mark just 11 times combined in the same span.
MOUND GAMES: Senior Elizabeth Dalrymple, the two-time reigning Ivy League Pitcher of the Year, has posted a 52-17 record for her career. Dalrymple ranks fifth all-time at Cornell with 52 wins and holds the school's career strikeout mark (542). Dalrymple is also second in lowest opponent batting average (.216), fourth in lowest ERA (1.72), shutouts (15) and saves (4) and is fifth in complete games (56).
HIT TOWNE: Sophomore Kristen Towne, a unanimous first-team All-Ivy selection as a utility player as a freshman in 2010, is off to a great start in 2011. She is batting .358 with four doubles, a triple and six home runs with 23 RBI in 27 contests. She is slugging .654 with a .404 on-base percentage and hasn't committed an error in 137 fielding chances. Towne is coming off a rookie season in which she batted .362 with 10 doubles, eight home runs and 31 RBI. She batted .455 with a .782 slugging percentage in Ivy League play.
ON A TWO-YEAR TEAR: Senior outfielder Marissa Amiraian has picked right up where she left off a season ago, batting .370 with a team-high 34 hits, 18 runs scored and three triples while starting all 27 games this year. She is also perfect in 41 fielding chances and has posted a .437 on-base percentage. A year ago, Amiraian batted .400 and had one of the most memorable hits in school history when she hit a two-run homer to help Cornell to a 3-2 victory over Harvard in game three of the Ivy League championship season. She is the lone player to start all 27 contests for the Big Red this season and has posted nine multi-hit games.
BELLES ON A TEAR: During Cornell's last eight games (7-1), sophomore Erin Belles has been on a tear, batting .571 with two doubles, four home runs and 11 RBI. She has also scored six runs. Belles is slugging 1.238 with a .654 on-base percentage. Entering the stretch, Belles was batting .209 with one double, no home runs and two RBI in 26 career appearances.
ROOKIES ON DISPLAY: Several freshmen have seen significant action over the first month and are trying to lock down spots in the lineup. Christina Villalon (.242, five doubles, two home runs, 11 RBI) ranks second on the team in RBI and third in home runs while starting 24 games at a variety of positions (C, 1B, LF, RF, DP). Lauren Bucolo (.213, 3 2B, HR, 13 R) has started 25 games and appeared in all 27 contests while starting games at all four infield positions. Jenny Edwards (.211, 2 2B, 3B, HR, 14 R) has primarily played at second base while starting 25 games. Rookies Sam Creamer (.300), J.J. Briggs (.200) and Sarah McCormack (.200) have also started a combined 22 games.
SMART PLAY: Senior Ali Tomlinson, despite battling through numerous injuries in her last two seasons, is back on track in the pitching circle. Tomlinson is 5-6 with a 3.92 ERA with a pair of complete games so far in 2011. She ranks second on the team to Elizabeth Dalrymple in strikeouts (32), innings pitched (59.0), ERA (3.92) and games started (8) and appeared in (12). Tomlinson was named to the Capital One Academic All-District team in 2010 after recording a 3.45 grade point average in communication.
BIG WINNER: Head coach Dick Blood is in a chase to become the all-time winningest coach in Cornell athletics history for a single sport. He enters the weeked with 529 victories and needs 12 to tie legendary former baseball coach Ted Thoren (1962-890) at 541 during his 29-year career. Polo coach David Eldredge has won 702 games combined (and counting) with both the men's and women's teams.
IVY WEEKLY HONORS: The Cornell softball team took home a pair of Ivy League weekly awards, as senior Elizabeth Dalrymple was named Ivy League Pitcher of the Week for the second time this season, while sophomore Kristen Towne captured Ivy League Player of the Week for the first time in 2011 and the second time in her career. The duo helped the Big Red to a 6-5-1 record over Spring Break, including four straight wins to close the trip. Dalrymple was again outstanding in taking home the award, as the two-time Ivy League Pitcher of the Year went 4-0 with a 1.17 ERA in five starts en route to becoming the school's all-time strikeout leader. She punched out at least six hitters in each game, including a five-hit shutout win over defending Patriot League champ Bucknell in which she struck out 11. Towne led Cornell's offense over the week by hitting .471 with an .853 slugging percentage in 12 contests. She slammed three home runs and 12 RBI, and was especially efficient in the late innings. Towne slammed a two-run homer in the eighth inning to give Cornell a split with Longwood, drove in a run in the seventh to give the Big Red a victory over Bucknell, had a home run and five RBI in a win over Liberty and was 4-for-4 with three runs scored in a slugfest victory at Mount St. Mary's.
NEXT UP: Cornell continues its 10-game road swing with a midweek series at Syracuse on Thursday, April 14, then heads to Columbia for a four-game set beginning on Saturday, April 16 at 12:30 p.m.
