Baseball Takes Twin Victories from Quinnipiac

By completing a season sweep of Northeast Conference champion Quinnipiac, the Harvard baseball team wrapped up a round of semi-casual warm-ups against the Bobcats and launched towards the NCAA Tournament at full steam.

The Crimson (29-15) beat Quinnipiac (26-22) yesterday and today in back-to-back 11-10 victories. The Bobcats—projected recently by Baseball America as a stronger seed in the upcoming playoffs—suffered from a rash of Crimson hits and stolen bases in the losses.

Today, Harvard sophomores David Bach and freshman Matt Vance—who stole two bags each—paced the team, which swiped seven bases in as many attempts.

“We’re getting our running game back a little bit,” said Harvard coach Joe Walsh of the tune-ups. “We’re getting aggressive.”

Yet despite an outstanding day at the plate from junior shortstop Morgan Brown, who went 3-for-3 and hit his first career home run, Walsh’s outlook remained measured.

“We hit a lot of fastballs,” Walsh said. “We didn’t get that many off-speed pitches and breaking balls. We forced them into counts the last couple of days where they had to hand us fastballs.

“I feel real good if we’re hitting breaking balls,” Walsh added.

Yesterday at Quinnipiac, junior Lance Salsgiver’s ninth-inning grand slam won the game.

Today, Vance rapped his second home run of the season—a towering shot to left at O’Donnell Field—in the sixth inning. Altogether, the six-through-nine spots of the batting order went 7-for-14 today and drove in eight of the team’s accredited nine RBI.

“I feel real good about the balance in out lineup,” Walsh said. “Those guys down in the bottom of the lineup are swinging right now as good as the guys in the three and four spots. So we’ll see.”

Harvard, which clinched an automatic bid to the Division I Baseball Championship by sweeping Cornell in the Ivy Championship Series, will find out where and against whom it will open during a live selection show tomorrow, May 30, at 11:30 am. The tournament bracket will be revealed live on ESPN.

TOURNAMENT TIME

Walsh said the team eagerly awaited its fate—which belongs in the hands of the Division I Baseball selection committee.

“It’s going to be exciting, you know? It’s great to be on top,” Walsh said. “You get all the calls coming in of congratulations. We don’t care where we go.”

Walsh revised his statement.

“I want to go to a baseball town,” he said. “A place where there are going to be some fans. People are going to be all over us. The atmosphere. Many of the places have that. Not all.”

“But we’ve got to earn that,” he added. “We’ve got to hang in there a few games to knock some people off to play in front of big crowds.”

Of the 16 announced NCAA host sites, 11 are located in the southeastern U.S. and Texas. Baseball America projects a Harvard showdown in Fullerton, Cal., against the No. 2-seeded Cal State-Fullerton Titans.

The Titans are the No. 1 team in the nation according to Baseball America’s most recent Top 25 poll.

“We’re not going out there just to visit,” Walsh maintained. “I want to go out there, play our game, leave it on the table, come win or come lose, and that’s okay. I just want to make sure that we played our best baseball.”

That will be more likely if the Crimson gets together its stellar starting pitching staff as quickly as possible. Junior ace Frank Herrmann has been battling discomfort and freshman standout Shawn Haviland recently entered the University infirmary with a severe case of strep throat.

Walsh remained confident that given the healthy return of the two starters—along with senior starter Mike Morgalis—the team will be capable of holding its own against a powerhouse program.

“A ground ball off a kid from Texas bat or a CSF bat is going to be the same thing off the bat of somebody from Cornell,” Walsh said. “We’ve just got to make those plays.”

NCAA Tournament play begins Friday and continues through the weekend.

NEW ENGLAND’S FINEST

After the first round of regional tournament play, three Harvard players will partake in New England’s most prestigious collegiate baseball All-Star exhibition at Fenway Park next Sunday, June 5.

Crimson captain Schuyler Mann, who was named to the New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association’s First Team, will man the backstop for New England’s Division I All-Stars.

Junior Zak Farkes and freshman Steffan Wilson were named to the second team.

The squad, which includes Quinnipiac’s Bryan Sabatella, will play a team of Division II-III All-Stars after the Red Sox conclude their series against the Anaheim Angels.

—Staff writer Alex McPhillips can be reached at rmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.