Ivy Repeat for Baseball

It's a good measure of how much Coach Joe Walsh and the Harvard baseball team have achieved in the last four years, that the team saw a season that ended in the NCAA tournament as a disappointment.

In four years, Walsh has rebuilt a once-faltering program, which finished 10-25 under Coach Leigh Hogan in 1995, into an Ivy juggernaut. The Crimson has tallied three consecutive league crowns and a 64-16 league record while storming three times into the NCAA field.

But unlike its trips in 1997 and 1998, when it grabbed unlikely wins against high-caliber competition in UCLA, Stetson, Nicholls State and Tulane, the Crimson (28-20, 16-4 Ivy) came away empty-handed in 1999.

Chilled after a 17-day layoff between its last regular-season game and the start of regional play, Harvard made an inconspicuous exit from the tournament, mustering just two runs on nine hits as No. 12 Pepperdine and Virginia Commonwealth delivered a one-two knockout combination. The Crimson batted just .141 in regional play.

"The general consensus was that we weren't just there to look at teams like Pepperdine and USC and say 'Wow, we're on the same field with them,'" said senior righthander Garett Vail, who took the loss to VCU. "We had shots to beat both of those teams, and the fact that we didn't win does mean that we kind of stepped back."

Waves ace Jay Adams (11-2) scattered four hits in a complete-game 4-0 shutout in the opener, while an eighth-inning error by sophomore right fielder Scott Carmack allowed the go-ahead run to score in a 3-2 decision to the Rams, sealing Harvard's first winless trip to the NCAA tournament since 1978.

"We struggled offensively," Vail said. "We didn't execute at the plate, we missed bunts and wasted at-bats that could have turned innings into big innings."

The Crimson earned a reputation for giant-killing with its tournament wins in 1997 and 1998 and made believers of thousands of surrogate fans in college baseball strongholds like Oklahoma State and LSU.

But two pitcher's duels--usually the Crimson's strong suit--resulted in two meek losses and a step backward on the path to national recognition.

In Game 1, Adams struck out eight and walked one, and did not allow a Harvard baserunner past second base as he mixed a fastball and a splitter to keep the Crimson bats off rhythm.

Four singles--a pair by junior first baseman Erik Binkowski and one apiece by Carmack and senior catcher Jason Keck--was all Harvard could string together in its worst offensive performance of the season, and its first shutout since the season opener at Charleston Southern.

"We had two great pitchers out there tonight," Walsh said. "To play nine innings in two hours and 15 minutes really says something about the pitching. We hadn't seen a kid like that with a splitter like that all season long. He was tough. Real tough."

Although sophomore righthander John Birtwell, the Ivy League Pitcher of the Year who finished 4-5 with a team-best 2.83 ERA, battled over 7.1 innings, allowing just three earned runs, his mates stuck him with another hard-luck loss, one of several he suffered this year because of meager run support.

"I was happy that Coach gave me the opportunity to stay in the game," Birtwell said. "The guys played well behind me. Some days, the bats don't come around, but I'm still really confident in our hitters."

Game 2 was a tighter affair, and Carmack was central, playing both hero and goat. The sophomore, who was Harvard's lone representative on the All-Tournament Team, drove in the Crimson's only two runs of the tournament with a two-run home run off VCU winner Jason Dubois (10-2) in the fourth that made it 2-0.

The Rams rallied for a pair in the sixth off Vail, who worked 7.1 innings and allowed two earned runs while striking out seven, to even the score at 2-2 and set up Carmack's moment of tribulation in the eighth.

With VCU's Kevin Elrod on first with one out, first baseman Jake Anthony stroked a hard liner to right field, which Carmack initially played to catch on the fly.

But as he neared the drive, Carmack changed his mind and slowed up to collect it on one hop, when his feet came out from under him, allowing the ball to roll away to the right-field wall, scoring Elrod with the eventual winning run.

"It was a tough ball to judge," Carmack said. "At first I thought I could get it. Then I had to hold up and slipped. Maybe I should have hung back a little more with a man at first. It cost us the game."

Although Carmack hit a one-out double in the ninth, Dubois stranded him, and Harvard was left with nothing to show for its cross-country plane trip.

"It was a good ballgame with two good pitchers going at it," Walsh said. "It was a disappointment because we have a better ball club than we showed. Our bats just didn't come through for us, but I think we showed some people out here that we belonged. This year we put together 31 kids who worked their butts off."

"It was an especially tough for the seniors to see our careers end that way," Vail said. "We had a 2-0 lead and a run scored on a line drive that took a bad hop."

Harvard had played solid league baseball all season, losing only four games, three of them to the league's top starters--first-teamer Chris Young of Princeton, Brown's Jim Johnson and Dartmouth's Conor Brooks.

Despite some adventurous wins, including a chaotic 18-16 extra-inning decision at Penn in the Ivy opener and a 15-12 slugfest in the opener of a pivotal series at Brown, the Crimson rolled as it has every year under Walsh. It clinched its fourth straight Red Rolfe Division title with a doubleheader sweep at Dartmouth on the last weekend of the season.

Ivy Player of the Year Andrew Huling led the attack, batting .384 on the season and .463 in Ivy play, with five home runs and 51 RBI. Huling switched from right field to center at the beginning of the season to fill the vacancy created by the graduation of Brian Ralph '98, and showed that Ralph's gigantic shoes were none too large.

During a four-game sweep of Yale at O'Donnell Field, Huling made three positively spectacular plays on top of a smattering of merely excellent ones, saving at least three runs. In Game 3, Huling scaled the center-field wall to heist a homer from Yale's Mike Kahney in the fifth inning of a game that took nine to produce a 7-6 Harvard win.

Huling also stole 14 bases and was consistently the squad's most heads-up baserunner.

Birtwell joined Huling on the MVP slate after going 4-1 with a 1.91 ERA and 42 strikeouts in 33 innings pitched. The sophomore showed that the flashes of brilliance he displayed while going 4-0 in 1998 were no fluke, as he dazzled opposing hitters with a Maddux-like arsenal of pitches, including a nasty two-seam fastball plus much-improved sliders and changeups. Opponents hit just .226 against him.

Senior second baseman Peter Woodfork and Binkowski stabilized the right side of the infield, as Woodfork hit .374 with 55 hits and 30 RBI, while Binkowski went .313 with three home runs and 31 RBI. He also showcased the leadership qualities and good baseball sense that could make him a favorite to materialize as captain next year.

Junior Jeff Bridich, who made the jump from JV ball after last season, made the most of his at-bats and scrapped a starting left field/designated hitter job, and hit .319 with three home runs and 23 RBI, good for Second-Team All-Ivy. Bridich showcased his power by blasting a home run over the Green Monster in a Beanpot semifinal loss to UMass, and his versatility by contributing at catcher and in left field.

After wrapping up the Rolfe, Harvard punched its ticket to the expanded 64-team NCAA field when it picked Princeton's pocket in Game 3 of the Ivy League Championship Series, rallying for three runs in the top of the ninth for a 5-4 victory.

An RBI single by Binkowski off Tiger closer Jeff Golden brought the Crimson within one, then rookie second baseman Faiz Shakir knocked maybe the most improbable hit in O'Donnell Field's history.

Shakir, who had just 11 hits--10 of them singles--on the year, and never batted outside the nine-hole in the order, slapped a two-run single to center for the winning runs.

"I had a rough day but I just tried to get that out of my head," Shakir said. "I was happy when Coach let me come up in that situation with the bases loaded and everybody on the team had confidence in me. This was the greatest moment of my career in sports."

The Crimson groomed another strong freshman class in 1999, as shortstop Mark Mager filled in admirably for Dave Forst '98, batting .309 with 42 hits and 28 RBI. Mager stole eight bases and played several positions--including third base, second base and left field--before settling in at short.

Mager even earned the affectionate nickname "Crash Davis" from his coaches, after Kevin Costner's character in the baseball classic "Bull Durham."

Righthander Ben Crockett, who blitzed his way into the starting rotation with high-80s cheese and also developed a curve and a sidearm fastball en route to a 5-1 record with a 4.88 ERA. Crockett shared Ivy Rookie of the Year honors with Princeton's two-sport standout Chris Young, likely to represent Crockett's nemesis for the next three years.

With the best control on the staff (47 strikeouts, six walks in 51.2 innings), Crockett was a weekend mainstay, and went 4-0 with a 3.69 ERA in five league starts.

"Going in, we knew we had a good staff," Vail said. "It was a staff with a lot of experience from guys like Birtwell, Donny Jamieson and Andrew Duffell, but Crockett really stepped up this season, and he's going to be hard to beat in the next three years."

If the Crimson maintains its dynastic control of the Ivy into the next millennium, it will be on the back of the deep, talented pitching staff that sparked its resurgence in the first place.

Birtwell and Crockett will go one-two in the starting rotation, but the departures of veterans like Duffell (3-1, 3.86) and Jamieson (5-0, 4.91) means an expanded role for this year's second-tier of midweek pitchers.

Sophomores Dan Saken (1-0, 3.10 with a .205 batting average against), Mike Dryden (1-2, 3.66) and John Franey (0-0, 4.05) threw substantial innings in long relief and spot-start roles, and could jump to the weekend four.

Meanwhile junior Derek Lennon (3-1, 5.46) made a team-high 18 appearances out of the bullpen and struck out 23 while walking just three in 31.1 innings. He figures to provide the long relief backbone and make an occasional start, as he did in 1998.

Walsh will also have to reshuffle his defense, filling gaping holes in center, at third and at catcher. Shakir looks to see increased infield time, while freshman Josh San Salvador, who hit .267, may DH more to accommodate a shift to left field by Bridich.

And highly-touted recruit Javy Lopez, who took a medical redshirt after playing in just three games, could return from a devastating eye injury sustained during fall batting practice to see outfield time.

To the optimist, the Crimson held serve in 1999, showing it could compete, if not dominate, on the national level. But losing as quietly as it did does not reassure. The magic of Stillwater, Okla. and Baton Rouge, La. can be resuscitated, but the Harvard bats will have to match its arms in their zeal.