UConn Stops Crimson Nine in NCAA Playoff

In baseball pitching is supposed to be 75 per cent of winning, and by the time the Harvard baseball team got to the third day of the NCAA Division I Play-offs at Storrs, Connecticut, it just didn't have any pitchers left. UConn scored eight runs off of three burned-out Crimson pitchers in the fourth inning of Monday's game to beat Harvard, 11-2, and win the New England championship.

The victory was UConn's second over Harvard in as many days, as it secured them a berth in the College World Series out at Omaha. The Huskies will face Texas in the first round next Friday.

Harvard finished second in the double-elimination play-offs. After beating Providence on Saturday in 12 innings, 4-2, the Crimson lost to UConn on Sunday in 16 innings, 8-5, and had to eliminate Northeastern, 18-6, in a game that carried over to Monday morning before playing UConn again.

After having played 37 innings in less than 48 hours, Harvard needed two victories over UConn to win the championship. Barry Malinowski was the only pitcher who was rested, and coach Loyal Park decided to save him for the second game. Pitching for the third day in a row, Roz Brayton started for the Crimson.

Brayton had pitched seven innings on Saturday and had faced three batters in relief on Sunday. "After two straight days of pitching I just didn't have anything left. I was trying to keep the ball low and get by on experience. It worked all right for two innings, but after that I couldn't throw strikes," Brayton said.

Sandy Weissant had pitched seven innings the day before against UConn, and he was ineffective in relief of Brayton in the fourth inning. Relief specialist Norm Walsh had pitched five shut-out innings on Saturday to beat Providence, but he also was unable to stop the Huskies' rally.

Malinowski finally came in to retire the side, and he didn't allow a run in 4 1-3 innings. But the Yankee Conference champions held onto their 11-2 lead to earn the trip to Omaha.

In the game against Providence on Saturday, Brayton gave up one run on a balk and allowed another when the Friars bunched the only three hits they got off of him in seven innings. Harvard put together a run with a walk to Mike Thomas, a single by Hal Smith and a grounder to the right side of the infield by Kevin Hampe. Jim Stoekel tied the score with a lead-off home run in the top of the eighth.

Walsh allowed only one hit in five innings of relief, and Harvard finally won the game with a two-out rally in the 12th inning. Hampe led off with a walk, and moved to third on two infield outs. Vince McGugan walked and stole second, and Toby Harvey drove in two runs with a single to center.

The outcome of the series was decided in the game against UConn the next day. The Huskies scored first on a triple by John Ihlenberg and a sacrifice bunt. They took advantage of Crimson fielding mistakes to score two runs in both the sixth and seventh innings, but after that Mike O'Malley held them scoreless for 8 2/3 innings before Ihlenberg hit a three-run homer in the 16th inning.

Harvard got its first run when Thomas singled in Larry Barbiaux in the fourth inning, and it took the lead temporarily with a three-run sixth. McGugan opened the inning with a walk, and scored on Harvey's triple. Successive singles by Stoekel, Thomas and Smith produced two more runs, and UConn's ace reliever Augie Garibaldi came in to get the next two batters out.

The Crimson managed to tie the score in the eighth inning without a hit, but after that Garibaldi was untouchable. He allowed only two hits in 10 2/3 innings to pick up his fifth win. Garibaldi also has eight saves this season.

But for seven innings O'Malley was equally impressive. In his first seven innings the sophomore righthander allowed only two hits. He pitched himself out of a jam in the 15th inning, and had retired the first two batters in the 16th before a walk and a single set the stage for the three-run blast by Ihlenberg. The Husky third baseman was five-for-six on the day, and figured in five of his team's eight runs. He also got two hits in Monday's game.

After losing to UConn Harvard had to go right into a game with Northeastern. The Crimson scored 15 runs in the second and third innings to victimize a much weaker pack of Huskies, and every regular had at least one hit in the 16-8 romp.

Captain Thomas was disappointed by the anticlimactic finale to his three years as a starter. "It's hard to come back here with exams and papers staring you in the face and no more baseball to look forward to," Thomas said.

"This year's team was just as good as last year's, and I really thought we were going to go back to Omaha. We didn't have a great hitter at three or four, which is rare for a good team, but then everyone in the lineup was confident that they could come through with the big hit when the team really needed it, and that's even rarer. "Our pitching was good this season, but it wasn't great, and it was our fielding that won a lot of the close games. We weren't making the defensive plays in that first game against UConn, and that's what made the difference. They played much better than we did, and they deserved to win," Thomas said.