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Ivy Weekly Baseball Report 5 - 4/6
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Volume 5, April 6, 2010
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Senior Tom Grandieri (Media, Pa.) was the catalyst to Penn's 4-1 record last week. The right fielder got a hit, scored a run and had an RBI in each of the team's five games. He also had four multi-hit games and three multi-RBI contests on the week. In the Quakers' first Ivy game of the season, Grandieri went 3-for-3, scored three times, had two RBI and hit his third home run of the season. On the week he hit .476 (10-21), scored eight times, hit two doubles and raked three home runs. The senior also had a team-high eight RBI and 21 total bases for a 1.000 slugging percentage in five games.
PITCHER OF THE WEEK
Junior right-hander Dan Bracey (East Greenwich, R.I.) twirled his second straight sensational outing, going the distance in a four-hitter to lead Columbia to a 7-0 win of Brown on Sunday, its third straight Ivy League victory to open the season. Bracey was masterful through seven innings, throwing just 88 pitches. He did not allow an extra-base hit or a walk and struck out six batters in the complete game start. In his past two starts, both complete games, Bracey has allowed just one run on nine hits in 14.0 innings. He has not walked a batter in the past two outings and has struck out 16 batters.
CO-ROOKIES OF THE WEEK
Princeton's Zak Hermans (Coppell, Texas) earned his first collegiate win with a win in Sunday's opener against Dartmouth. The freshman right-hander pitched six scoreless innings, allowing four hits and one walk while striking out six batters. The shutout performance allowed Hermans to lower his ERA by nearly three runs.
Harvard's Kyle Larrow (Carver, Mass.) hit safely in all five games with a .471 batting average including a .533 batting average in his four starts -- all in Ivy League play. He had a weekly-high of eight RBI for the Crimson. In a 4-2 win at Princeton, he drove home the game-winning run with a double and then plated an insurance run with a suicide squeeze in a 2-for-3 effort. He was 3-for-5 with five RBI in a 12-6 win over Cornell with a two-run home run (first of career), an RBI triple and a two-run single.
THE HONOR ROLL
Harvard's Sean O'Hara (Gloucester, Mass.) batted .467 in five games including a .538 batting average in his four Ivy League games with three sacrifice bunts. He figured in all four runs in a 4-2 win at Princeton with a two-run homer and a pair of crucial late-inning sacrifice bunts that led to runs. The junior scored the game-winning run against Cornell in the first game of a DH after driving home a run with a double.
Cornell's Corey Pappel (Mississauga, Ontario) was outstanding in shutting down the Dartmouth offense in game one on Saturday, working a complete-game three-hitter in the Big Red.s 2-0 shutout victory. He struck out four in the complete game while walking just three. Pappel was dominant, not allowing a single Big Green baserunner to reach third base on the day, and only once did he allow multiple baserunners in the same inning.
Sophomore Jon Eisen (Nashville, Tenn.) was all over the base paths this week, hitting safely in all five of Columbia's games, helping lead the Lions to a 4-1 record. Eisen batted .471 and carried a .526 on-base percentage during the week, scoring six runs and driving in a pair from the leadoff spot in the order. The switch-hitter was equally adept at each side of the plate, going 5-for-12 from the left side and 3-for-5 as a right-handed hitter. He batted .625 when leading off an inning and had two multiple-hit games during the Ivy League opening weekend. Eisen also added a double and a triple as he slugged at a .647 clip to post an OPS of 1.173.
Princeton's designated hitter Brian Berkowitz (Marietta, Ga.) batted .500 in three games over the weekend with five hits in 10 at-bats. He had a hit in all three games and also drew a walk. The junior made his biggest impact in Sunday's doubleheader against Dartmouth, getting three extra-base hits in the opener. He doubled twice in the game and also hit a fourth-inning homer to break scoreless tie. His sixth-inning double also provided an insurance run. In the nightcap, Berkowitz hit a seventh inning single to plate two runs and give Princeton a 4-3 lead at the time before the Big Green rallied in the late innings for an 10-inning win.
Junior third baseman Andy Megee (Los Angeles, Calif.) was the only Bulldog to reach base safely in all four games this week. Megee started the Ivy League season by hitting for a .333 average with four extra base-hits- including a home run- and six RBI. Megee, who hit safely in three of four games this past weekend at Columbia and Penn, drove in six of Yale's seven runs in the twinbill against the Lions.
After pitching exclusively out of the bullpen in 2009, a year in which he set a new Brown single season record for saves, Matt Kimball (Nashville, Tenn.) made his first start in almost two years against Columbia, giving up just one run over six innings, and giving Brown the split. Though allowing eight hits, the junior was able to continually work out of trouble, thanks in large part to his seven strikeouts, and shut down the Lions for long enough to let Brown pick up the win.
Penn junior Paul Cusick (Wilmington, Del.) earned his first Ivy win of the season by holding the League's top scoring team to just two runs on two hits Sunday. The right hander beat Yale by allowing only two hits and fanning nine batters in 5.1 innings of work in the first game of the doubleheader. The nine strikeouts are the second highest total for Cusick this season. The Bulldogs came into the game averaging over ten hits per game but were held to their lowest output of the season.
Junior Jeff Onstott (Houston, Texas) hit an even .400 in the four games over the weekend with a pair of doubles and five RBIs while fielding a flawless second as Dartmouth split its first Ivy League games of the spring. In a 16-1 win at Cornell, the junior broke open a 2-1 game in the fifth with a two-run single, then drove in a run in each of the next three innings. The following day he had one of the five Big Green hits in a 2-0 loss at Princeton before stroking a pair of singles and a double in a thrilling
5-4 win in 10 innings over the Tigers. Onstott has hit safely in 16 of the 18
games this season and leads the team with a .369 average and 18 RBIs.
2010 AWARD WINNERS
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Mar. 9 -- Sean O'Hara (Harvard) & Andrew Kolmar (Yale)
Mar. 16 -- Alex Aurrichio (Columbia)
Mar. 23 -- Dan Williams (Penn) & Trygg Larsson-Danforth (Yale)
Mar. 30 -- Dean Forthun (Columbia)
Apr. 6 -- Tom Grandieri (Penn)
PITCHER OF THE WEEK
Mar. 9 -- Robert Young (Dartmouth)
Mar. 16 -- Eric Eadington (Harvard) & Greg Lyons (Yale)
Mar. 23 -- Paul Cusick (Penn)
Mar. 30 -- Dan Bracey (Columbia) & Chris McNulty (Penn)
Apr. 6 - Dan Bracey (Columbia)
ROOKIE OF THE WEEK
Mar. 9 -- Nick Ferraresi (Columbia) & Brook Hart (Yale)
Mar. 16 -- Brad Kottman (Brown)
Mar. 23 -- Brook Hart (Yale)
Mar. 30 -- Zack Bellenger (Dartmouth)
Apr. 6 - Zak Hermans (Princeton) & Kyle Larrow (Harvard)
