GENEVA — On Saturday afternoon at McDonough Park, the Hobart College baseball team was looking to claim something they never had before: a spot in the Liberty League Championship Tournament.
After beating the Bard College Raptors on Friday during game one of their best-of-three Liberty League crossover series to begin the 2026 postseason, the Statesman went after the sweep in game two.
Led by senior left-handed starting pitcher Cole Tarrant, Hobart defeated Bard 5-1 to complete the sweep and advance to the first Conference Championship Tournament in program history.
The lefty pitched a career-high six innings during his last start against Ithaca College back on April 24, and he topped that with throwing seven-plus innings against Bard in game two.
With the game two win, the Statesmen improved to 4-0 all-time against the Raptors.
“It’s hard, it’s playoff baseball,” Hobart College head coach Brad Cook said about getting the series win. “It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, when your back is against the ropes, you’re always going to come out fighting.”
After Tarrant gave up a lead-off single to Bard sophomore catcher Andrew Plenn in the top of the eighth, Cook elected to go to his bullpen, starting with first-year right-handed pitcher Joe Dunham while leading 2-0 at the time.
During his relief outing, Dunham faced a second-and-third with one out situation during the eighth after a double by Raptor sophomore left fielder Jeremy Hall. He gave up Tarrant’s lead-off base runner on a sacrifice fly ending Tarrant’s line with four hits, one earned run, zero walks allowed while striking out four Raptor batters.
With the sac fly, the runner on second advanced to third as Dunham struck out Bard sophomore pinch hitter Jack Burcell to get out of the inning without any more damage and maintaining the lead.
Tarrant improved his record to 4-2 on the season while Raptor senior left-handed starting pitcher Kane Morgan suffered the loss and fell to 4-5 on the year.
Morgan threw six strong innings, allowing eight hits, two runs (one earned), three walks and striking out eight Statesmen batters.
Keeping that lead at 2-1, the Statesmen tacked on three insurance runs in the bottom half of the eighth inning.
Hobart senior right-handed Max Friedlander allowed a couple base runners from Bard (11-22) in the top of the ninth and escaped with zero runs allowed to secure the victory.
“That was huge,” Cook said about Dunham getting out of that eighth inning jam while also adding about Friedlander. “They jumped on a first pitch fastball, banged a double off of him but he got the big punch out. We’ll take the out for the sac fly but that was a huge punch out. Max, the same thing, they come out and jump on him a little bit, some command issues early on but he buckled down and made the pitches when he needed to.”
Statesmen senior second baseman Christian Petry, who doubled in a run to start the scoring in the bottom of the eighth inning, led both sides with three hits in the contest.
Hobart, which won 15-1 in game one, started the game with a run in the bottom of the first inning with a run batted in single by junior first baseman Sean Garvin.
“We got the start we needed,” Cook said about his team. “We went at them and we attacked them. We earned everything that we did, and I’m just proud of them.”
Garvin, junior third baseman Cole Conte and first-year shortstop Jack O’Neil all collected two hits for Hobart (27-11) in the game.
The final four teams winning their crossover series and reaching this year’s Championship Tournament is Hobart, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Rochester.
“This is exciting, it is uncharted territory,” Cook said about his team moving on. “We’re excited to be doing it, the guys have been working hard for four years, especially the senior class. We’re excited to see what we can do.”