Lions Seek Victories Against Rolfe Foes

The Columbia baseball team has struggled to get consistent performances from its pitching staff all season, tallying a 7.48 team earned run average. Perhaps its best stretch of games this season came last weekend when it played its first Ivy opponents and went 3-1. The team followed that weekend, where it surrendered just 17 runs, by giving up 19 in one game to Army.

When the Lions take on Harvard and Dartmouth this weekend in their final games against the Rolfe Division, they will be hoping for performances more in line with their Ivy track record.

Coming off that 19-8 loss at home to Army, in which its defense committed five errors and three different pitchers gave up at least five runs, the Lions face a pair of teams that present very different challenges.

Saturday’s doubleheader against Harvard looks to be one of Columbia’s easiest pair of games all season. The Crimson are just 1-17 and have lost 12 games in a row. As a team that has struggled to hold down opponents, the Crimson provides an opportunity for the Lions to fix what has been troubling them. Harvard is hitting .222 with only two starters hitting above .300—senior utility player Taylor Meehan and senior outfielder Tom Stack-Babich.

The Lions and Crimson have no mutual opponents, but Harvard did drop its first two Ivy games at Princeton by scores of 3-2 and 6-5. Its doubleheader last Sunday at Cornell was postponed. The two games against the Tigers were two of Harvard’s best games from a pitching standpoint as its staff has an ERA approaching nine.
Sunday’s doubleheader against Dartmouth, the only team undefeated in Ivy play after the first weekend, should put the Columbia staff to the test.

The Big Green is the only team in the Ancient Eight with a record over .500. Last weekend against Princeton and Cornell, the team won all four games, scoring 42 runs.
Junior catcher/first baseman Michael Pagliarulo was named co-Ivy Player of the Week after he hit .545, including two home runs and drove in seven runs.

Dartmouth is hitting .332 as a team, and three players who have started at least 11 games are hitting .310 or better. Senior outfielder Damon Wright leads the charge with a .438 batting average and 18 RBIs while Pagliarulo is hitting .426.

These will be the first home games of the season for both Harvard and Dartmouth, with both early games starting at noon and the following games starting 30 minutes after the conclusion of the first ones.