Baseball Gets Swept on California Shores

William Friedkin's 1985 film To Live and Die in LA was a critical and box office dud. This weekend, the Harvard baseball team starred in three sequels anyway.

The Crimson (0-3, 0-0 Ivy) began its 2000 season in disappointing fashion, losing its first three games of the season to UCLA (14-10). The team's Westwood stint began with a 9-2 setback on Friday night. Saturday's doubleheader opened with a heartbreaking 5-4 loss, and in the bottom end of the twinbill the Crimson fell to the Bruins, 10-3.

Harvard entered each game with hopes of defeating the perennial national power. Sophomore Justin Nyweide (0-1) matched UCLA junior Rob Henkel (3-1) pitch-for-pitch in the first game's early stages, holding the Bruins scoreless for three innings. In Game Two, Harvard held leads of 2-0 and 4-2 before Rick Lyons capped a Bruin rally with a homer off senior closer Derek Lennon (0-1) in the final frame.

Even ace John Birtwell (0-1) couldn't reverse the Crimson's fate in the final game, as the Bruins' big bats chased the sophomore off the mound after only 2.1 innings.

Harvard will head to the Homestead Challenge in Florida this Thursday in search of its first win.

UCLA 9, Harvard 2

Henkel entered the weekend as one of the hottest pitchers in baseball, having struck out sixteen batters in six innings in his last outing against Bradley. He managed to duplicate this feat against the Crimson, fanning sixteen in seven innings of work.

However, Nyweide kept the Crimson in it early. The sophomore retired ten of the first twelve batters he faced to keep the Bruins scoreless through three innings.

In the fourth, however, pre-season All-American Chase Utley reached Nwyeide for a single. After Utley stole second, Bruin first baseman Garret Atkins sent a Nwyeide pitch over the left field fence, giving UCLA a 2-0 lead that it would not surrender.

Nyweide managed to get out of the inning without additional damage, but got himself in another jam in the fifth. After walking third baseman Randall Shelley, he surrendered a double to Charles Merricks that gave the Bruins a 2-0 lead. Nyweide left the game, and freshman Ryan Tsujikawa closed out the inning after allowing yet another run to score.

Tsujikawa's control was off, as he hit two batters and walked another in 1.1 innings. The Bruins tacked on three more runs in the sixth inning and two in the seventh, as Merrick went 3-3 on the day with two RBIs.

The Harvard offense could put nothing together until the red-hot Henkel left the mound. In the ninth inning, the Crimson managed two runs off reliever Paul Diaz. Scot Hopps drove in third-baseman Nick Carter, and sophomore catcher Brian Lentz scored his first career run for Harvard on a fielder's choice.

UCLA 5, Harvard 4

The matinee of Saturday's twinbill was far more exciting, but the result was no less disheartening for the Crimson. Harvard lost despite a solid outing from sophomore Ben Crockett, last year's Ivy League Rookie Pitcher of the Year. Crockett pitched six solid innings, allowing three earned runs and striking out five.

The Crimson took its first lead when shortstop Mark Mager singled in Carter in the second innings. Carter came back in the fourth inning to belt an offering from Bruins pitcher Josh Karp over the left field wall with the bases empty. The first Crimson home run of the year gave Harvard a 2-0 lead.

UCLA stormed back in the bottom of the fourth with a two-run home run by cleanup hitter Bill Scott, but Harvard regained its lead in the next inning as Karp began to lose control. He misfielded a playable ball of the bat of sophomore second baseman Faiz Shakir, and he walked the next batter, Harvard tri-captain Jeff Bridich. Karp was pulled, and his replacement, Jon Brandt (3-3), got junior right fielder Scott Carmack to fly out. However, Brandt hit Lentz, to load the bases.

That set the stage for a two-out single by Carter, who got to second on yet another error. Shakir and Bridich scored on the play, and the Crimson was back up by two runs, 4-2.

Crockett began to unravel in the seventh, loading the bases with no outs. Lennon replaced him and got out of the inning with only one run having crossed the plate after Bruins catcher Ryan Hamill grounded into a double play.

However, Lennon did allow the Bruins to tie it in the next inning. After walking two of the first four batters he faced, Lennon gave up a double to Scott that scored the tying run before retiring catcher Forrest Johnson with a man on third.

Scott absolutely torched the Crimson on Saturday, going 6-8 in the doubleheader with two home runs and four runs batted in.

The Crimson had an opportunity to take the lead in the top of the ninth inning. Bridich walked with one out and the heart of the order due up for Harvard. However, Brandt picked Bridich off at first. He then got Carmack to ground out to the shortstop, and the brief threat was over.

Lennon took the mound in the ninth looking to extend the game to extra innings, but Lyons would hear nothing of an extra frame. He led off the ninth by taking Lennon deep past the left field wall, and was mobbed by his teammates after rounding the basepaths.

UCLA 10, Harvard 3

In the final game, the Crimson fell victim to the longball. Birtwell didn't make it out of the third as the Bruins touched him up for five runs. Utley began the scoring with a solo shot to right in the first inning. Harvard tied it in the second on a Mager RBI single up the middle, but the Bruins sent three men home in the bottom of the second, capped by Charles Merrick's two-run double.

Birtwell left in the third after Scott's leadoff double led to another run, but freshman Kenon Ronz didn't fare much better in relief. He gave up two-run jacks to Atkins in the fourth and Shelley in the fifth. Dan Baken gave up the Bruins' fourth homer of the game before Mike Dryden and freshman T.J. Sevier cooled the offensive explosion with an inning of scoreless relief each.

UCLA's Bobby Roe (3-2) and Ryan Carter combined for fourteen strikeouts and allowed only three runs, none of them earned. The Bruins have rebounded from an 8-10 start to win their last six games.