Larson Five-Hits Friars, 4-3, As Crimson Divides Twinbill

PROVIDENCE, R.I.--Three blasts and a bloop provided the runs, and Bill Larson twirled his second consecutive five-hitter, as the Harvard baseball team edged Providence College, 4-3, to engineer a split of their doubleheader here Saturday.

The Friars won the opener, 3-2, in eight innings.

In the nightcap, Brad Bauer, Vinnie Martelli and Charlie Santos-Buch took advantage of a stiff wind to rocket solo shots off Leominster High grad Scott Corliss. The homers brought the Crimson back from 2-0 and 3-1 deficits to tie the score at three in the sixth inning.

But it was one of the game's two singles--a two-out bloop by Don Allard which was actually more a liner than a bloop--which plated pinch runner Paul Scheper with the gamewinner to give Larson his second victory in three decisions.

The tally came after Santos-Buch's blast with one out in the sixth. Friar coach Don Mezzanotte yanked Corliss in favor of Mark Colletta, who retired Mark Bingham on a long fly to center for the second out. Colletta then walked Eddie Farrell, and Crimson coach Alex Nahigian removed the designated hitter in favor of pinch runner Scheper.

The move paid off. Scheper stole second, kicking the ball out of Providence's Bob Oscarson's hand in the process, then raced home with the goahead run when Allard singled over second base moments later.

Meanwhile, Larson settled down after a shaky start. The big righthander surrendered a fourth-inning homer to Oscarson and a triple and double to Jim Tierney, but as he heated up so did his pitches.

"I seem to throw better when I warm up longer," Larson said in the dugout after the game. "The warmer I got the better I pitched."

In the opener, a superb pitching performance by Ron Stewart was wasted as Harvard came back from a 2-0 deficit only to lose the game on an unearned run in the eighth.

Three Friar pitchers limited the Crimson to only six hits, but Stewart hurled even better, going the distance and scattering four safeties.

One of them, a two-run blast by Steve Dellaposta with Oscarson aboard, put Providence in the lead, but Crimson third baseman Rick Pearce--who had a superb day at bat and in the field--singled home the tying run with two out in the sixth.

With one out in the eighth, however, Blaine Carroll scampered home with the winning run when shortstop Bauer flipped a bad hop double play ball into centerfield, giving Stewart an undeserved loss for his efforts.

THE NOTEBOOK: Bobby Kelley's 20-game hitting streak ground to a halt as the second baseman suffered an 0-8 day... The play of the afternoon was Pearce's barehanded grab-and-throw of a slow roller in the first game that nipped Carroll by a step