Big Green picked fifth

By rbrown
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Updated: February 12, 2020

HANOVER — The Ivy League office announced the results of its 2020 Baseball Preseason Media Poll on Wednesday with Dartmouth picked to finish fifth. Penn received the most first-place votes (10) to take the top spot in the poll with 119 points over the defending champion, Harvard, which received four first-place votes and 107 points.

The only other team to receive first-place votes was Columbia (two), which finished third in the poll with 100 points. Yale received 84 points to claim fourth with the Big Green receiving 61 points, ahead of Brown (41) in sixth, Princeton (38) in seventh and Cornell (26) in eighth.

Last year, Dartmouth had its streak of consecutive seasons above .500 in league play end at 11 with a record of 8-13 to tie for seventh, its fourth season in the bottom half of the conference standings since the start of the 2000 season.

The Big Green will have to replace four of its top hitters from last season who all graduated, while a fifth — junior Ubaldo Lopez — will miss at least the beginning of the season while recovering from an injury. This leaves head coach Bob Whalen with a predominantly youthful and inexperienced lineup when Dartmouth takes the field a week from Friday. But he will look for rebound years from a trio of seniors in center fielder Trevor Johnson (.191/.282/.309), first baseman Michael Calamari (.246/.276/.351) and infielder Blake Crossing (.243/.374/.271).

The starting rotation will be anchored by a pair of sophomore right-handers who were thrown into the fire last year in Justin Murray (2-5, 5.93) and Nathan Skinner (3-6, 5.96), while the bullpen remains intact, led by junior southpaw Max Hunter (1-0, 3.98, 4 saves).

Dartmouth opens the 2020 campaign with four games at the Snowbird Classic in Port Charlotte, Fla, beginning on Feb. 21 against Indiana State. The following day, the Big Green will play Chicago State in a doubleheader before wrapping up on Sunday against Omaha. All four games will be streamed live on FloLive.tv.