ITHACA, N.Y. – Senior Dale Wickham was 3-for-3 with his second home run of the season, a walk and a pair of RBI, but the baseball team couldn't overcome an early deficit in a 5-3 loss to Dartmouth on Sunday afternoon in the rubber game of an Ivy League series at Hoy Field.
 
Dartmouth (9-16-1, 5-3-1 Ivy League) took advantage of defensive miscues from Cornell (6-16-1, 2-7) with three of its five runs on the day coming unearned before four Big Red errors. The two earned runs from the visitors came as part of a four-run first inning that featured four of the Big Green's eight hits on the day. Senior Tommy Morris came on in relief to start the third inning and was nearly flawless across four frames, yielding no runs on just one hit and one walk to allow Cornell a chance to claw its way back.
 
Freshman Jason Apostle led off the home half of the third with a double, then scored after consecutive groundouts. Senior Kyle Gallagher then roped a two-out double down the line that short-hopped the wall in left, then came around to score on Wickham's first single of the day to cut Dartmouth's lead to 4-2.
 
The Big Green pushed another run across in the seventh, and sophomore reliever Andrew Ellison entered the game in the eighth and stranded the bases loaded to keep Cornell within three. That set the stage for Wickham's lead-off solo blast around the foul pole in right to make the score 5-3.
 
The game then ended in dramatic fashion. With a runner already on and Wickham representing the potential winning run on deck, Gallagher hit a grounder that was bobbled by the Dartmouth shortstop. He regrouped and fired the ball across to first, and Gallagher was called out on a bang-bang play to end the ball game.
 
Cornell returns to action with three more Ivy League games next weekend at Penn, starting with a doubleheader at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Meiklejohn Stadium in Philadelphia.