Well-Decorated Baseball Prepares for ICS

For Harvard, the only award currently worth considering is the Ivy Championship Series trophy.

Nevertheless, the Crimson will have a few more feathers in its already intimidating cap when it faces Cornell in the rain-postponed ICS at noon today.

Harvard received 11 separate end-of-the-year awards, easily making it the most decorated squad in the Ancient Eight. Six players were designated first-team or second-team All-Ivy, four were given honorable mention, and freshman Steffan Wilson was honored as Rookie of the Year.

Brown’s Matt Kutler—a career Crimson-killer who went 9-for-11 over a particular three-game stretch against Harvard this season—was named Player of the Year. Yale’s Josh Sowers was given Pitcher of the Year honors.

Wilson, who joins Zak Farkes as Harvard’s second Rookie of the Year in three seasons, led the Crimson in batting average (.362) and on-base percentage (.439), and paced the team in runs (34), hits (50), and walks (18). The frosh started nearly every day at third base and pulled double-duty as the team’s closer as well, notching a school-record five saves and a miniscule 1.93 ERA. He tied opposing batters down to just a .109 batting average.

“It feels good now, especially going with these games left to play, to get recognized,” captain Schuyler Mann said. “It builds guys’ confidence—especially younger guys who haven’t gotten recognized like Steffan. You don’t want people to think we were given these. We earned them.”

Wilson’s success on the hill and at the plate also earned him two more honors. He was unanimously voted first-team All-Ivy at third and was named to the second team as a reliever.

“He’s been real important to us all year,” junior pitcher Frank Herrmann said. “You forget a lot of the time that he’s a freshman. Some guys take it slow, and ease into it. But he and a bunch of other guys this year, too, have assimilated well. I don’t know where we’d be without them.”

On the first team, Wilson is joined by two very familiar faces. Mann repeated as the league’s best catcher for the second straight year, while Farkes did the same at the utility slot.

Mann started 36 games, hitting .292 and slugging eight home runs—second on the team behind junior Josh Klimkiewicz—while leading the squad with 37 RBI. His 26 career four-baggers are the second-most in Harvard history, following Farkes’ 27.

Farkes, for his part, overcame early-season struggles due to a shoulder injury to hit .429 in Ivy League play and .357 on the year, second on the Crimson. The junior didn’t quite match his record-setting 14 home runs from a year ago, but finished the season absolutely on fire, hitting .576 with four bombs and 15 RBI over the team’s final nine conference games.

Farkes carries a 10-game hitting streak into the ICS today.

“It’s awesome to have him swinging a hot bat,” Mann said. “It’s something we were definitely counting on. Having him get on fire down the stretch at the most important time is huge. He’s the guy you want up there with runners on base.”

Junior shortstop Morgan Brown and junior right-fielder Lance Salsgiver both made the second team. Brown—the team’s everyday shortstop and infield anchor—had missed five straight games due to a serious virus before returning to play last Tuesday against Northeastern. The rocket-armed, fleet-footed Salsgiver—who, notably, was clocked by scouts at 90 mph in relief against Dartmouth last weekend—led the team with 12 stolen bases in 14 attempts, hitting .298.

Harvard’s cadre of honorable mentions, meanwhile, is three-fourths composed of the three pitchers in its short starting rotation. Freshman phenom Shawn Haviland (6-1, 3.18), Herrmann (4-1, 3.40), and senior Mike Morgalis (5-0, 3.52) captained a pitching staff with the second-best ERA in the Ivy League, compiling just two losses among them.

“Pitching’s key,” Herrmann said. “No one thought our pitching would be our strong suit coming into this year, but pitching’s carried us, especially early on in the Ivy season.”

The Crimson’s final honoree, however, might be its most controversial. Klimkiewicz, Harvard’s junior first baseman, earned only an honorable mention despite leading the team in home runs (8), slugging percentage (.613) and total bases (84) while tallying 34 RBI—second only to Mann. He hit .314 and recorded a .404 OBP in a long-awaited, fully healthy comeback year.

He was overlooked in favor of Yale’s Marc Sawyer and Columbia’s Tighe Holden.

“I definitely think Josh was passed over,” Mann said. “He had tough competition at first base, but he put up huge numbers. He’s been in the three or four hole all season, with pitchers gave him the absolute best they’ve got. It’s unfortunate that he wasn’t further recognized.”

THE BIG RED TWO

But for the Crimson now, however, the focus isn’t on these awards. It’s on swiping the first two games of the ICS.

The Big Red (17-22, 11-9 Ivy) comes to O’Donnell Field today for the first two games of the best-of-three ICS—hosted by Harvard (24-15, 15-5)—which will crown an Ivy League champion and the recipient of an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

The series, originally scheduled for Saturday and yesterday, will at last take place today at noon and 3 p.m., and tomorrow at 1 p.m., if necessary. Each game will be nine innings.

For the Crimson, the delay looks to be a blessing in disguise. After playing in two postponed weekend series in a row—Harvard split against Dartmouth this past Monday and faced Brown the Monday and Tuesday before that—pitching will finally be working on normal rest again.

“It definitely helps us,” Herrmann said. “We had some tired arms, and I know that with Brown and Dartmouth, for me, not being able to get my mind set exactly and having everything pushed back was tough. The league made a good decision. There was no need to rush it.”

The last time the Crimson played in the ICS was in 2003 when it fell to Princeton. Harvard last won the ICS in 2002. Cornell has yet to make the series since the league split into two divisions in 1993.

The Big Red, conspicuously, was also no-hit in its penultimate game of its regular season, garnering no hits in seven innings for a 2-0 loss in the first game of a doubleheader against LeMoyne. It then garnered only four hits in the second game, a 6-1 loss.

Make no mistake, though. Cornell was arguably Harvard’s toughest opponent all year, losing slim 3-1 and 2-1 games to the Crimson across the river in early April.

“We all expected Princeton to be the team facing us,” Mann said. “But we want to make sure not to take anything for granted. [Cornell] played us closely, had good pitching, and finished with best defense in the Ivies.”

“I don’t take anything from that game [against LeMoyne],” Herrmann added. “We got smoked by Northeastern, a team we beat in the Beanpot. Cornell just came off an emotional series against Princeton. Maybe they were looking ahead towards us, like we were towards them.”

—Staff writer Pablo S. Torre can be reached at torre@fas.harvard.edu.