Baseball Sweeps Princeton

In his last trip to Clarke Field for the 2003 Ivy Championship Series, then-junior Trey Hendricks could only sit and watch. Sidelined with bone chips in his knee when the Harvard baseball team fell two games to one to the host Tigers to end its season, Hendricks was just a spectator.

Yesterday, he was the star of the show.

The senior tossed his second-straight complete game—a day after setting the Harvard record for consecutive games with a hit—to propel the Crimson past the defending Ivy Champions 4-1 and complete a two-game sweep of the Tigers.

But he said it was just like any other game.

“It seemed like any other game to me,” Hendricks said. “I wasn’t putting any more emphasis on it or approaching it any differently than I do any other game.”

The wins—combined with a two-game split at Cornell on Saturday—put Harvard (9-8-1, 3-1 Ivy) atop the Red Rolfe Division standings after the first weekend of conference play.

And somewhat surprisingly, in two of the three wins, it was the team’s starting pitching and not its powerful lineup that led the way.

Senior Mike Morgalis turned in arguably the best game of his two-year Crimson career on Saturday. The right hander hurled a complete game, three-hit shutout against the Big Red to help Harvard rebound from a Game 1 loss to take a 2-0 victory in the second half of the doubleheader.

The Crimson will next travel to Holy Cross on Wednesday before opening its home Ivy schedule against Columbia and Penn this weekend.

HARVARD 4, PRINCETON 1

The Crimson jumped out to an early 1-0 lead on a sacrifice fly by Hendricks in the first and never trailed to sweep a doubleheader from the consensus preseason pick as the league’s top team.

From that point on, the senior right hander took over, allowing only two hits and two walks while striking out eight over nine innings of work against Princeton (12-10, 1-3).

Hendricks (3-1) outdueled Tiger starting pitcher Gavin Fabian, a freshman who has been arguably Princeton’s most effective hurler in a star-studded rotation, to earn the win.

Fabian (2-2) allowed two earned runs on seven hits while striking out a season-high 11 batters in eight innings in his Ivy League debut. But its wasn’t nearly enough.

Senior centerfielder Bryan Hale singled off of Fabian to lead off the game, and advanced to third on an error, before Hendricks drove him home to give the Crimson a 1-0 lead.

Harvard added another tally in the fourth when sophomore right fielder Lance Salsgiver scored on a single by sophmore left fielder Chris Mackey.

After the Tigers scored their lone run in the fifth on an RBI double by first baseman Stephen Wendell, the Crimson added two more insurance runs. Sophomore second baseman Zak Farkes drove in both, the first coming on a sixth inning solo home run and the second on an eighth inning double that scored Hale.

The home run was Farkes’ Ivy League-leading sixth of the season.

Farkes finished the game 3-for-4 and Hale was 2-for-4. Hendricks had a double and an RBI.

HARVARD 11, PRINCETON 7

With Princeton’s star pitchers Ross Ohlendorf and Erik Stiller already burned in a two-game set with Dartmouth the day before, the Crimson probably expected to put up some runs in Sunday’s doubleheader.

It did just that in the first game, racking up 11 runs on 10 hits behind a 2-for-3, three-RBI ouput from sophomore designated hitter Frank Herrmann.

After falling behind 6-0 after two innings, Harvard needed all the offense it could get.

The Tigers roughed up freshman starting pitcher Jake Bruton for three earned runs before he was relieved by Herrmann, who earned the win, after recording only one out. A two-RBI single by designated hitter Will Venable off of Herrmann then put Princeton ahead 5-0 after one.

Trailing 7-2 entering the sixth inning, Herrmann got the comeback started by blasting a two-run homer to score junior catcher Schuyler Mann and pull Harvard within three, 7-4.

Three consecutive singles off the bats of Salsgiver, Mackey and freshman pinch hitter David Bach loaded the bases for junior shortstop Ian Wallace, who singled to right field to score Salsgiver. Hale then tied the game at 7-7 with a two-RBI single to left.

Hale later scored on a fielder’s choice to give the Crimson an 8-7 lead. In all, the Crimson scored seven runs in the frame.

Brian Kappel (0-2), who relieved starting pitcher Eric Walz in the sixth, took the loss for Princeton.

HARVARD 2, CORNELL 0

Morgalis tossed a complete game shutout and his roommate Hendricks drove in both Crimson runs as Harvard picked up its first Ivy win of the season in the second game of a doubleheader with Cornell (4-13, 1-1) at Hoy Field.

Morgalis (1-2) walked six batters, but allowed only three hits in what was, by far, his best performance of the season to earn his first win of the year.

“He needed a game like that,” Hendricks said. “He had a couple of tough draws against Texas Tech and Louisiana-Lafayette, and he needed a game like that to get his confidence up. But I am very proud of the way he went out there. All you can ask is for him to keep us in the game, and he did a lot more than that.”

The Crimson jumped out to an early 1-0 lead on an RBI single by Hendricks in the first, and the first baseman drove in the game’s only other run on a sacrifice fly in the sixth.

The first inning single gave Hendricks a school-record streak of 22 consecutive games in which he had recorded a hit, a streak that began on April 15, 2003 against Boston College.

The streak broke the record set by Brian Ralph, who had a 21-game hit streak in 1998, but ended with a hitless performance against Princeton the next day.

“It’s definitely something I’m proud of,” Hendricks said. “The day after my dad told me about it, though, I went out there and went 0-for-3, but hopefully I got another [hit streak] started [today].”

Both Hendricks and Hale finished the game 2-for-3, and Hale also scored a run. Salsgiver had the Crimson’s only other hit off of Cornell ace Dan Baysinger (0-2), who tossed eight innings of five-hit baseball before being relieved by Blake Hamilton, who threw a perfect ninth.

CORNELL 7, HARVARD 3

The Big Red jumped out to a 5-0 lead off of sophomore starting pitcher Matt Brunnig and held on for a 7-3 win over Harvard in what was the Ivy opener for both teams Saturday.

Brunnig (1-3) was relieved by Jason Brown, who was stellar in relief, allowing only one earned run over the final five innings, but the damage was already done.

Hendricks was the only Crimson hitter to post multiple hits, going 2-for-3 at the plate.

Herrmann had a double and two RBI and Farkes singled and scored a run for the Crimson.

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