Baseball Loses Doubleheader to Huskies, 4-2 and 6-1

If winning the Ivy League championship earns you a day off, the Harvard baseball team sure took it yesterday.

Fresh off taking two-of-three games from Princeton this past weekend--including torching Tiger rookie star Chris Young for 5 runs in 4.1 innings--the Crimson bats fell silent in dropping a double dip at Northeastern (25-18), 4-2 and 6-1.

Harvard (28-18, 16-4 Ivy) managed just 10 hits on the day, and not a single player earned more than one in a game.

"[Yesterday] was definitely a letdown," senior center fielder Andrew Huling said. "We came out flat. Games against Northeastern should be just as important as any other, but we didn't have it."

The pair of losses concludes Harvard's highly successful regular season on a slight downer. The Crimson do not play again until the NCAA Regionals, set to start on May 28. It will learn its seeding next Monday.

"We can't do anything about these losses today," designated hitter Peter Woodfork said. "Our focus is on our next game, which is the Regionals. Hopefully, we'll improve."

Northeastern 4, Harvard 2

Hits were so hard to come by for the Crimson that even when it scored, the bat rarely met the ball.

Harvard jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the top of second inning when freshman third baseman Josh San Salvador drew a leadoff walk from Ken Henry.

Another walk bumped San Salvador up to second. Junior first baseman Jason Larocque grounded out to third to advance the runners. Sophomore right fielder John Portman flied to left for the RBI. One run, no hits.

The lead couldn't last.

Sophomore pitcher Mike Dryden cruised through the first two innings, but gave up a pair of runs in the next two.

The Huskies staged a two out rally in the third to claim the lead for good.

Northeastern center fielder Jason Lewis started things with a single to center. He stole second base, and a walk put runners on first and third. A single by Kevin Kim tied the game, and a throwing error by Huling allowed the go-ahead run to score.

"Errors are part of the game," Huling said. "Everyone makes physical mistakes."

Harvard made some noise in the top of the sixth. Having already scored a run on Portman's single, it had runners on first and second with two outs, but Peter Donoghue fanned freshman shortstop Mark Mager to end the threat.

"We had runners on base in both games," Huling said. "Nobody stepped up."

Henry improved to 2-0 with the win. Dryden, giving up 6 hits and 4 runs--only two earned--in 3.2 innings, took the loss to fall to 1-2. Donoghue earned the save.

Northeastern 6, Harvard 1

The Huskies touched up senior starting pitcher Quinn Schafer for three runs on three hits and an error in the bottom of the second to take a 4-1 lead and cruise to a 6-1 victory.

After both teams traded runs in the first, Husky DH Peter Wysong led off the second with a double. A pair of singles brought him home. Lewis grounded out to advance the runners and a beanball loaded the bases.

A Crimson throwing error allowed two more runs to score. Husky pitchers Greg Kelley and Donoghue shut the door the rest of the way. Donoghue earned the win.

"You always have to give credit to the pitchers when they throw strikes," said Woodfork, who drove in the Crimson's lone run. "But it really was our hitting more than their pitching."

Perhaps the only good news of the day was Woodfork's pain-free play. Second on the team with a .388 batting average he has been fighting an elbow injury the past couple of weeks.

"I'll work hard to get ready in the next two weeks," Woodfork said. "The elbow didn't bother me at all today."