Thomas Roulis was everywhere. Or, so it seemed.
The Dartmouth second baseman had three hits, one run, and eight assists in the field as he powered the Big Green to a 2-1 victory over Boston College. He looked like a magnet on the diamond, routinely moving left and right to retire BC batters with ease.
Freshman Mike King received the start in the game from head coach Mike Gambino, his third start of the year. He was opposed by righty Chris England of Dartmouth.
The Big Green had no trouble jumping on King early, knocking two hard singles to the outfield in the top half of the first inning. An impressive diving catch from left fielder Nick Colucci wasn’t enough to help him escape the inning, as Joe Purritano came to the plate next and slapped a double down the line to bring two runners home. It gave the Big Green a quick 2-0 lead.
The Eagles went down quietly in their half of the first, starting with a leadoff walk but failing to bring the runner home.
After a rough first inning, King settled down to retire the Big Green, thanks in part to a smooth, 5-4-3 double play. The Eagles’ bats couldn’t back him up, though, as they went down in order in the bottom of the second.
Following another quick inning from King, BC got its first hit of the day thanks to Colucci, who beat out a hard grounder up the middle. Colucci then stole second and advanced to third on a fielder’s choice, only to be stranded there after a Blake Butera fly-out to centerfield.
In his next at-bat, Purritano crushed the ball to right field, but Chris Shaw was able to track it down. Despite putting two runners on base in the top of the fourth, King and the Eagles escaped the inning with no damage as the score remained 2-0.
The Eagles finally got on the board in the bottom of the fourth. Following a single from designated hitter Joe Cronin, Tom Bourdon crushed a double that bounced off the right field fence to bring a run home. The hit cut the Big Green’s lead in half, bringing the score to 2-1 after four innings.
Colucci led off the bottom of the fifth with a walk-England’s third of the game-but a double play took him off the base paths. First baseman John Hennessy came up next and slapped a double into right-center field, but he wasn’t able to advance as the Eagles were retired.
After the fifth inning, King was pulled in favor of righty Luke Fernandes. The freshman gave up a walk and a single but found his way out of the inning without surrendering a run.
With two outs in the top of the seventh, Fernandes plunked right fielder Jeff Keller to load the bases for cleanup hitter Dustin Selzer. He would end up escaping the jam by forcing Selzer to pop out in foul territory.
Following an uneventful bottom of the seventh, Jesse Adams came on to relieve Fernandes. He made quick work of the Dartmouth hitters, retiring them in order to put the Eagles back at the plate.
Hennessy led off with a walk in the Eagles’ half of the eighth, bringing last weekend’s hero Butera up to the plate. He grounded into a double play to stunt the Eagles’ momentum. Shaw followed him with a deep fly to right field, but Keller had enough room to make the catch and end the inning.
The Eagles had a prime opportunity for some more late-game heroics, as they had runners on first and second with no one out in the bottom of the ninth. Following a sacrifice bunt to advance the runners, a fielder’s choice at the plate and a suicide-squeeze play gone awry did the Eagles in.
“That’s not a team that we want to be,” Gambino said. “The way we played today … there wasn’t life, there wasn’t energy, there wasn’t enthusiasm, and that’s not good enough.”
Gambino hopes that his team will come out with more to prove going forward.
“Win or lose, if we go out and play hard, I can handle it,” he said. “I can’t handle [the effort against Dartmouth].”
