ITHACA, N.Y. – Dartmouth used a late surge in Game 1 and never trailed in Game 2 of a doubleheader sweep of the baseball team on Wednesday afternoon at Hoy Field, 3-1 and 9-3. Junior Cole Rutherford and freshman Mark Fraser had doubles in the opener, and junior Tim Willittes turned in a quality start in the night cap, but the Big Red fell to 12-16 overall and 5-7 in Ivy League play.
 
Cornell returns to action this weekend with a four-game intradivisional series at Penn. The series will take the shape of doubleheaders at noon on both Saturday and Sunday at Meiklejohn Stadium in Philadelphia.
 
Game 1: DARTMOUTH 9, CORNELL 3 (Box Score)
The Big Green outhit the Big Red by a 13-3 margin, but neither team led by more than a run until the visitors blew the game open with five runs in the seventh.
 
Cornell opened the scoring in the first inning against Dartmouth ace Duncan Robinson after senior Frankie Padulo drew a four-pitch leadoff walk amd stole second. Junior C.J. Price followed with a single to put runners on the corners, and Padulo scored on a double-play grounder.
 
Dartmouth tied the game with Michael Ketchmark's RBI single to left in the third, which also put runners on the corners with one out. Senior starter Michael Byrne induced a double-play grounder to minimize the damage. It epitomized the first four innnigs of Byrne's outing, in which he stranded six Dartmouth baserunners.
 
The Big Green finally got to Byrne in the fifth. After a hit-by-pitch and a walk, Thomas Roulis laced a two-run double into the gap to give the visitors a 3-2 lead.
 
But Cornell answered in the bottom half of the inning with the help of a couple of errors on Dartmouth's catcher. With runners on the corners and one out, Price hit a ball sharply up the box that got by the pitcher. Padulo was running from first on the play so Dartmouth's second baseman was able to field the ball behind the bag, but Padulo slid in safely to avoid a double play and allow senior Eliot Lowell to score the tying run from third.
 
Dartmouth took the lead for good with a small-ball run in the sixth. Adam Gauthier led off with a single and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. Gauthier then aggressively moved up to third on a groundout to short, which put him in position to score the go-ahead run on a passed ball.
 
Game 2: DARTMOUTH 3, CORNELL 1 (Box Score)
With the game still scoreless, senior Jordan Winawer hit a double to left field and moved up third with one out in the third inning. But the Big Red couldn't convert against Dartmouth starter Cole O'Connor, who struck out the next batter and got some help from center fielder Nick Ruppert's long journey to a towering fly ball to the warning track hit by Fraser.
 
Meanwhile, Willittes' was perfect through three innings, threw 20 of his first 25 strikes for strikes and setting down 10 in a row to start the game. Among Dartmouth's next four batters in the fourth inning, three hits triples to give the Big Green a 2-0 lead.
 
Dartmouth tacked on another run after a walk and three straight two-out singles in the sixth. With the bases loaded, Willittes then induced a flyout to end the threat with his final pitch of the day. He worked six innings, yielding three runs on six hits with three strikeouts — his third quality start of the season.
 
Sophomore Ellis Bitar was 2-for-3 and scored the Big Red's lone run in the seventh inning. While swiping third for his team-leading seventh stolen base of the season, the throw from Dartmouth's catcher eluded the third baseman and ended up in the outfield, allowing Bitar to score. The Big Red stranded runners on third in the seventh and ninth innings against Dartmouth closer Patrick Peterson, who worked 2.2 scoreless innings for his third save.
 
Winawer joined Bitar as the only Big Red batters with two hits on the day. Sophomore Griffin Tutun had a base hit in his first collegiate start.