2010 All-Ivy League Team

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FROM IVY LEAGUE RELEASE

PRINCETON, N.J. — In what could very well be unprecedented, the 2010 Ivy season saw its champion win the title without a single representative on the All-Ivy first-team selections.

The Dartmouth Big Green (Rolfe Division) emerged in a three-game series against host Columbia (Gehrig Division) and will travel to the NCAA as the Ivy League representative. However, unlike a year ago when Bob Whalen’s club won its first championship in 22 years, the boys from Hanover won without any household names. It was a classic case that the sum of the Dartmouth team was stronger than its individual parts. If Dartmouth needed offense, timely hitting and intelligent base running emerged to manufacture runs. If they needed to keep the score low, the pitching staff responded. The combination of opportunistic offense and stout defense was effective, as the Big Green finished the regular season 26-17.

But it was a contingent of Gehrig Division student-athletes that took the majority of the 2010 season individual awards. Penn’s Tom Grandieri was named Player of the Year after hitting .458 and slugging .759 in Ivy play, while Columbia’s Pat Lowery took the Pitcher of the Year award after going 3-1 in Ivy play, and holding opponents to a ridiculous .172 batting average in 32.2 innings pitched.
Columbia’s Dario Pizzano and Dartmouth’s Chris O’Dowd rounded out the individual awards by sharing the Rookie of the Year award for the League.

Grandieri hit .458 in Ivy play with 38 hits, including 17 that went for extra bases. The senior ripped a League-leading 13 doubles along with four home runs for John Cole’s team. The most feared bat in the Quaker lineup, Grandieri also led the League in runs batted in, with 25 in conference games. In all games, the powerful outfielder hit .399 with 22 doubles, seven home runs and 46 runs batted in. He was the only unanimous selection named to the team.

Lowery carried a 2.48 ERA in Ivy play and had 25 strikeouts for the Lions. The ace on the Ivy League’s best staff appeared in five games with four complete games. For the season, Lowery pitched 65.0 innings and struck out 45. He finished 2010 with a 5-3 record in 11 appearances, including four complete games.

Pizzano was a major addition to Brett Boretti’s offense in 2010. The freshman was second only to sophomore Jon Eisen in batting average, hitting .374 on the year, and smacking 12 home runs. In League play, the outfielder hit seven round-trippers and batted in 18. His 26 hits in 67 at-bats yielded a .388 average. Pizzano, who might be most famously known for scoring the winning run in the "greatest Little League World Series game ever played" — 2003’s Saugus (Mass.) American Little League’s 14-13 extra-inning victory over Richmond, Texas — displaces Nick Cox (2008) as the most recent Columbia recipient of the award.

O’Dowd played in 18 games behind the plate for the Big Green in Ivy play and led the team in batting average by .057 (hitting .385). The freshman slugged .631 and had a .453 on-base percentage on eight doubles, a triple and a home run in 65 at-bats. The Dartmouth catcher earned second-team All-Ivy for his exploits.

Repeat first-team selections from a year ago include Cornell’s dominant reliever David Rochefort and Yale first baseman Trygg Larsson-Danforth.

Rochefort appeared in nine of 20 League games and finished the Ivy season with a 3-0 record. It was the senior’s work throughout the year that was most remarkable, however. In 21 appearances, Rochefort finished with a 4-1 record in 27.0 innings, giving up just 15 hits and an eye-popping 0.67 earned run average and three saves.

Larsson-Danforth returns at first base after hitting .352 in Ivy play and slugging .662 for John Stuper’s Bulldogs. The senior had 25 hits in Ivy play and batted in 12 runs. Solid on the basepaths, Larsson-Danforth had seven successes on nine stolen base attempts. He finished the Ivy season with 153 putouts and a .977 fielding percentage.

Brown’s Matt Colantonio, Chris Tanabe and Pete Greskoff garnered first-team accolades in the infield as catcher, second base and utility positions, respectively. Colantonio earned the nod after scoring 17 times in Ivy play and a .347 batting average. He was also successful on 17 of 29 stolen base attempts. Tanabe finished the year with a .391 League season on 27 hits and had a nice end to his collegiate career with 66 total bases on 46 hits for the entire year. Greskoff flirted with the .300 mark all season and was an RBI machine for Marek Drabinski’s team — leading the Bears with 54 in total. The junior destroyed the ball this year, hitting a potent 17 home runs overall.

Completing Bruno’s resume on the first team selections are outfielder Josh Feit and designated hitter Michael DiBiase. Emerging as Brown’s most productive bat, Feit had 34 hits in 79 at-bats, with seven doubles, two triples and two home runs against the Ancient Eight. DiBiase was just behind Feit in team batting average in 2010, going .424 in 19 Ivy League games. The powerful sophomore had 28 hits, including half that went for extra bases. On the year, he was second behind Greskoff in runs batted in, with 34 in 42 games.

Gehrig champion Columbia also named two additional first-team selections in catcher Dean Forthun and designated hitter Alex Aurrichio. Forthun was Columbia’s best hitter according to average, going .397 in 20 League games. The unsung hero behind the plate for the success of Columbia pitching, Forthun had 25 hits and seven doubles. Aurrichio, who moonlights in the Fall as the starting goalkeeper on the Men’s soccer team, showed much promise this year in the designated hitter spot. Batting .329 in 42 games (fourth-best on Columbia), the sophomore knocked in 40 runs on 50 hits, including 13 home runs. The two-sport student-athlete also scored 32 times in 2010.

Joining Rochefort on the first team from the Cornell camp was Mickey Brodsky. The junior batted a team-best .384 through 37 games on the year. Pacing the Big Red in several other categories, including: hits (48), slugging percentage (.536) and on-base percentage (.477), the utility selection will be looked upon to get Bill Walkenbach’s team back into the championship series like in the 2008-09 season.
Harvard’s dynamic duo of Brent Suter and Sean O’Hara also joined the All-Ivy mix from Joe Walsh’s team after stellar campaigns. Suter appeared in six Ivy contests, with an unblemished 4-0 record for the Crimson through 33.0 innings. The sophomore sported a 3.55 earned run average, surrendered only 35 hits and sat down 33 batters on strikes. For the year, Suter finished with a 4-2 record in 49.2 innings pitched. O’Hara was second on the Crimson in batting average for the year, just behind Jeff Reynolds at .342 through 149 at-bats, but it was his ability to get extra base hits that made O’Hara particularly potent. His team-best 16 doubles meant that Harvard routinely had runners in scoring position. Twenty-six runs batted in also attest to O’Hara’s hitting ability.

Closing out the 2010 All-Ivy first team is a pair of classmates from the University of Pennsylvania, third baseman Dan Williams and outfielder Jeremy Maas. Joining forces with Grandieri to power the Quakers to the top of the Team Batting statistics in the Ivy League, Williams (30) and Maas (27) combined for 57 hits and 44 total runs. Williams hit .380 on the Ivy year and sent 12 runs across the plate. Maas was just slightly off the mark in average (.370), but more than made up for it power, hitting eight doubles, a triple and five home runs.

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2010 All-Ivy Baseball
* – Unanimous Selection
Player of the Year: Tom Grandieri, Penn
Pitcher of the Year: Pat Lowery, Columbia
Co-Rookies of the Year: Dario Pizzano, Columbia & Chris O’Dowd, Dartmouth
First Team [17]
P – Pat Lowery, Columbia (So., Oakdale, Conn.)
P – Brent Suter, Harvard (So., Cincinnati, Ohio)
RP – David Rochefort, Cornell (Sr., Arcadia, Calif.)
C – Matt Colantonio, Brown (Jr., Garden City, N.Y.)
C – Dean Forthun, Columbia (Sr., Glendora, Calif.)
1B – Trygg Larsson-Danforth, Yale (Sr., Belmont, Mass.)
2B – Chris Tanabe, Brown (Sr., Jupiter, Fla.)
3B – Dan Williams, Penn (Jr., Southhampton, N.J.)
SS – Sean O’Hara, Harvard (Jr., Gloucester, Mass.)
OF – Josh Feit, Brown (Jr., Woodcliff Lake, N.J.)
OF – Dario Pizzano, Columbia (Fr., Saugus, Mass.)
OF – *Tom Grandieri, Penn (Sr., Media, Pa.)
OF – Jeremy Maas, Penn (Jr., Alpharetta, Ga.)
UT – Mickey Brodsky, Cornell (Jr., Encino, Calif.)
UT – Pete Greskoff, Brown (Jr., Paoli, Pa.)
DH – Michael DiBiase, Brown (So., Weston, Mass.)
DH – Alex Aurrichio, Columbia (So., Dix Hills, N.Y.)
Second Team [9]
P – Dan Bracey, Columbia (Jr., East Greenwich, R.I.)
P – Tony Bertucci, Cornell (Sr., Belleville, Ill.)
RP – Cole Sulser, Dartmouth (So., Santa Ysabel, Calif.)
C – No selection
1B – Jason Brooks, Dartmouth (Jr., Westlake Village, Calif.)
2B – Gant Elmore, Yale (Jr., Bloomington, Ind.)
3B – Ryan Zrenda, Brown (Jr. Old Lyme, Conn.)
SS – Joe Sclafani, Dartmouth (So., Palm City, Fla.)
OF – Jake Carlson, Dartmouth (So., Woodlands, Texas)
OF – Charlie Neil, Yale (So., Dallas, Texas)
UT – No selection
DH – No selection
Honorable Mention [16]
P – Corey Pappel, Cornell (Jr., Mississauga, Ontario)
P – Kyle Hendricks, Dartmouth (So., San Juan Capistrano, Calif.)
P – Vinny Lally, Yale (Jr. Tampa, Fla.)
RP – Reid Terry, Penn (Sr., Atlanta, Ga.)
C – Chris O’Dowd, Dartmouth (Fr., Cherry Hills Village, Colo.)
C – Tyler Albright, Harvard (Jr., Long Beach, Calif.)
C – Will Davis, Penn (Jr., Atlanta, Ga.)
1B – Jason Banos, Columbia (Jr., Lynnfield, Mass.)
2B – Steve Gable, Penn (Sr., Emmaus, Pa.)
3B – Jon Eisen, Columbia (So., Nashville, Tenn.)
SS – Alex Ferrera, Columbia (Jr., Huntington, N.Y.)
SS – Matt Schmidt, Yale (So., Grayslake, Ill.)
OF – Billy Rumpke, Columbia (So., Cincinnati, Ohio)
OF – Dillon O’Neill, Harvard (Jr., Naperville, Ill.)
OF – Andrew Kolmar, Yale (Jr., Mendham, N.J.)
UT – Trey Rallis, Yale (Jr., LaCanada, Calif.)