Baseball Just Misses Ivy Title

In the end, a team that usually only lost when it beat itself was beaten by a worthy opponent—Princeton’s Thomas Pauly.

After downing Dartmouth for the Red Rolfe division title, the Harvard baseball team faced Princeton in a three-game set for the Ivy championship and an NCAA bid.

It was the same Tigers team, literally, that the Crimson had swept in two games for the title the season before. Princeton’s rotation and lineup hadn’t changed, and neither had its star.

Pauly picked up the save in game one and earned the complete-game victory in the third game, in the process sending the Tigers to the postseason and Harvard home. But it didn’t feel much like revenge.

The 2003 season was more of an Ivy title quest than an Ivy title defense for the Crimson, because the title was never really its own to defend.

Like so many championship clubs, the 2002 team had prevailed and then parted, leaving only a few contributors behind to begin again. The result was a kamikaze club of fearless first-timers and breakthrough veterans, charging at the title with a brash confidence uniquely its own.

“A lot of coaches like to say that we’ve got a young team, so we’re going to be good in a year or two,” Harvard coach Joe Walsh said before his team even played a game. “Uh-uh. I say it’ll be a game or two.”

The season was disjointed and inconsistent, producing as many “What ifs?” as “Wows,” and finally a resounding “Wait ’til next year.”

It started, as it always does, in Florida, with nine games—and seven losses—crammed into ten days.

When the team returned from Florida, the overwhelming sentiment was that Harvard was much improved—even without catcher Mickey Kropf, who transferred to Vanderbilt, and junior pitcher Marc Hordon, who was lost to a shoulder injury. Close losses to perennial powers Miami and Florida International, as well as stellar play from freshmen, left the team hopeful.

“It was just everyone starting to play to their potential,” sophomore catcher Schuyler Mann said of the strong finish. “It gives us a lot to look forward to coming back and getting ready for the Ivy season.”

And, after a disappointing 3-5 Ivy-opening mark, the Crimson really did look good—especially its offense. Led by a lineup that batted over .300, Harvard took three-of-four from both Yale and Brown to take a one-game lead on Dartmouth going into the season’s final weekend.

But with four games slated, the Crimson had a problem. It only had three starting pitchers.

Junior first baseman Trey Hendricks had emerged as Harvard’s ace early in the season after several impressive performances. Most notably, Hendricks outpitched Cornell’s Chris Schutt—expected to be drafted in the top five rounds—in a 3-1 Harvard victory. But now, after aggravating a knee problem that had plagued him for more than eight months, Hendricks would miss the duration of the Ivy season while recovering from surgery to remove a bone chip.

So when freshman Matt Brunnig and sophomore transfer Mike Morgalis both lost their starts on Saturday in Hanover, the Crimson needed two wins but didn’t know who could deliver them.

Senior Kenon Ronz—who was consistent the entire season and assumed the role of ace in Hendricks’ absence—earned the first victory with a gutsy, complete game seven-hitter that set the stage for Barry Wahlberg.

In a slugfest of epic proportions—Dartmouth didn’t have a No. 4 pitcher either—the Crimson took an early 7-4 lead, but when the Big Green threatened to tie it up, Walsh brought in his closer—in the fourth inning.

Wahlberg, the senior captain who had put out fire after fire during the championship run the year before, was heroic in his longest outing in over a year. He allowed three earned runs, but never let the game get too close as the Crimson clinched its sixth Red Rolfe title in eight seasons, 14-10.

The result was especially satisfying considering the merciless, classless taunting the team had endured on Saturday at Dartmouth.

“After [Saturday’s] fiasco—we took a lot of grief from their fans—I thought the guys really wanted to win,” Walsh said.

That set up the meeting with Princeton on Pauly’s home grass. Harvard lost the first game on two errors by freshman third baseman Josh Klimkiewicz, which yielded three unearned runs in a 5-2 defeat. But it won game two on Klimkiewicz’s bat.

With the top prospect in the Ivy League, Ross Ohlendorf, throwing for Princeton—his 95-mph fastball has earned him first-round status—Klimkiewicz was unfazed. He drove in all four of the Crimson’s runs with a double and a homer in his only two at-bats against Ohlendorf as Brunnig earned the 4-3 victory.

Then there was game three and Pauly, the worthy foe that ended the Crimson season. Pauly allowed two second-inning runs, but only yielded a single hit over the next seven frames in the 5-2 Princeton win.

But even before the last Princeton player had leaped onto the pile on the mound, thoughts of next year were already creeping in.

The season did have its share of stellar seniors. There was the reemergence of catcher Brian Lentz and the rebirth of Ronz. Then there was the replay of Wahlberg’s 2002 dominance. Lentz and Wahlberg were first-team All-Ivy honorees, Ronz second-team.

But the rest of the big contributors will be back, including three of the team’s top four pitchers and 12 of its top 13 hitters. Mann, widely considered the second-best catcher in the league behind Lentz, should assume full-time duties behind the plate. Hordon will return, as will the strongest freshman class in recent memory—led by Zak Farkes, Lance Salsgiver, Klimkiewicz and Brunnig.

And perhaps most importantly, Hendricks—another first-teamer who batted .387 and had the league’s top slugging percentage—will be back at full strength.

“As a coach, you start to think about next year as soon as you get on the bus,” Walsh said after the game. “We’ve got some cornerstones in place, and it’s good that they’ve gotten some championship-game experience.”

—Staff writer Lande A. Spottswood can be reached at spottsw@fas.harvard.edu.

BASEBALL

Record

20-23 (11-9 Ivy, 1st place Red Rolfe)

Coach Joe Walsh

Captain Barry Wahlberg

Highlights Team wins its sixth Red Rolfe title in eight seasons. Senior catcher Brian Lentz returns from season off to bat .373 and be named first team All-Ivy. Freshman Zak Farkes named Ivy Rookie of the Year.