Batmen Earn Playoff Spot With Penn Twin-Kill

PHILADELPHIA--Crimson Pride. The ability to win the big game. That's how Harvard coach Loyal Park summed up yesterday's crucial twinbill sweep, 2-1, 7-5, of Penn here yesterday.

The double killing kept Harvard's Eastern League title hopes alive, as the Crimson moved into a tie with Princeton on the final day of EIBL competition. With a bid to the NCAA district I tournament hinging on the outcome, Harvard will take on the Tigers in a special playoff game here on Sunday at 1 p.m.

"The kids have been in many big ones before," Park said after the game. "They know how to handle it." Harvard has won the last three EIBL titles, including a dramatic playoff victory over Cornell in 1972.

Harvard's top pitching duo, lefty Milt Holt and captain Mike O'Malley, both turned in clutch performances, besting Penn's virtually unbeatable combo of Andy Muhlstock and John Petit. The Crimson hurlers were backed by some timely hitting from the revived Harvard offensive corps.

Holt locked horns with the previously undefeated (8-0) Muhlstock in the opener, and outdueled the junior righty in a tight 2-1 decision. Designated hitter Joe Mackey and rightfielder Dave St. Pierre drove in the only Crimson runs of the ballgame, providing Holt with all the backing he needed.

Mackey unloaded a line shot over the right field fence in the second, staking Harvard to a 1-0 lead. Muhlstock then silenced the Crimson bats until the seventh, when Leigh Hogan led off with a single to center field. And then the Saint came marching in.

With St. Pierre at the plate, Hogan pilfered his seventh EIBL base of the year, giving him the league crown in that department. St. Pierre then drove a double to left field, driving in Hogan with what seemed to be nothing more than an insurance run.

The Quakers made it into the scoring department as they picked up their only marker in the bottom of the seventh and last inning. Penn's Tom Brandt singled in Glenn Partridge to break up Holt's shutout.

Holt, in picking up his seventh win of the season against only one loss, dispatched the Quakers in only one hour and 40 minutes. "My curve was working well. They were just beating it into the ground," the junior said after the game.

Holt allowed five Quaker hits, while Harvard managed only four off the fire-balling Muhlstock. "We thought that he [Muhlstock] was the best we faced all year," Park said.

In the nightcap, Penn hurler Petit did not get off the hook so easily. The Crimson chased Petit off the mound in the midst of a six-run rally in the third that gave O'Malley his second straight Eastern League victory.

Catcher Danny Williams's double plated Don Driscoll with the first run of the inning. Ed Durso's sacrifice fly then unexpectedly brought in two runs, as Williams followed Leon Goetz across the plate when the throw from the outfield rolled into the Harvard dugout.

In another lapse of baseball ability, Penn outfielders collided with each other when fielding Hogan's hit to right center, allowing Ric LaCivita to score Harvard's fourth run of the stanza.

Jim Thomas made it 6-0, as his single off relief pitcher Andy Laurits brought in Hogan and Mackey. The count rose in the fifth when consecutive singles by Hogan, Mackey and St. Pierre made it 7-0.

O'Malley, meanwhile, was breezing through the Quaker order, allowing five hits and no runs through the sixth. But after issuing back-to-back walks to lead-off men Gary Ozga and Brandt in the seventh, the Crimson captain left the game in favor of relief specialist Norm Walsh.

Walsh struck out the first man he faced, but a two-base throwing error by Thomas gave the Red and Blue its first run, and a subsequent ground-out left a man on second with the score 7-2.

All-Eastern League selection Ed Boone then narrowed the gap to 7-4 with a towering smash over the center field fence.

After Partridge doubled in Ted Alfiere with the fifth run, designated hitter Muhlstock came to the plate with a chance to avenge his earlier defeat. His fly ball into right field, however, fell well short of the mark and Harvard had swept the tense doubleheader from the Quakers.

"The defensive infield won the ball game for us," Park said after the game. The sure-handed quartet--Hogan, LaCivita, Durso, and Thomas--turned in three double plays in the two contests, including a rally-killer in the last inning of the first game.

In hopes of adding to its laurels, the Crimson nine faces the judges of Brandeis in a decisive greater Boston league tilt at 2 p.m. on Soldiers Field today. A win would give Harvard its fourth GBL title in a row.