Wilson's Shot Makes for Dramatic Finish

BROOKLINE, Mass.—For most of the game, the Harvard baseball team played as tentatively as the afternoon’s on-again, off-again drizzle fell.

But when the skies finally opened up, so did the Crimson offense.

Harvard (21-18-1) engineered a dramatic comeback with five runs in the ninth inning to topple host Northeastern (21-17), 7-5, in a wet non-conference affair.

With two outs and runners on the corners, sophomore third baseman Steffan Wilson crushed a 1-0 fastball from Huskies closer Matt Morizio through the now-driving rain into deep centerfield. The ball bounced up against the 435-foot mark on the wall as the centerfielder slipped in pursuit, and Northeastern bungled the relay throw, allowing Wilson to chug all the way around for an inside-the-park, go-ahead three-run homer.

“It’s good to see the team fight back like that,” captain Morgan Brown said. “Steffan had a big hit.”

For Wilson, who has been inconsistent at the plate of late and struck out in his two previous at-bats, it may have been the slump-buster he was looking for.

“Absolutely mashed,” Brown said of Wilson’s home run. “That ball was stroked. That’s the sort of thing you need. You hit a ball solidly in a big situation [and that] gives you a lot of confidence.”

Trailing 5-2 entering the final frame, captain Morgan Brown started the rally with a looping single to left field and moved to third on a one-out double by catcher Justin Roth. Then, sophomore Matt Vance grounded softly to shortstop, but Arman Sidhu threw the ball away, allowing both runner to score and Vance to advance to second. A strikeout, a wild pitch, and a walk to Josh Klimkiewicz set up Wilson’s crowning blast.

Jason Brown, after a leadoff infield single, retired the heart of the NU lineup in order in the bottom of the inning to earn the save, his fourth of the year.

On a day when head coach Joe Walsh employed six pitchers in hopes of keeping the entire staff available for this weekend’s Ivy Championship Series against Princeton, Harvard received two scoreless innings apiece from Brad Unger and Jake Bruton to keep the game within reach through the middle innings.

“What we’re trying to do is just keep it close,” Bruton said, “So when we do score runs, our team still has a chance.”

After the Crimson seized an early 1-0 lead on a RBI single from Brown—the only Crimson player to log two hits—in the second, the Terriers answered with four runs in their half off starting pitcher Hampton Foushee. Northeastern rapped out sharp line drives on the balls Foushee left up in the strike zone, posting five of its 12 hits on the day.

Despite Foushee’s inconsistent outing, the pitching on the whole was a plus for the squad.

“It was kind of a staff day,” Bruton said. “You build off the guy that’s throwing in front of you. It gives the hitters a different look each time so it’s pretty effective for us.”

The Terriers added to their margin with a single run in the seventh off Mike Dukovich, but Harvard responded in the eighth with a run-scoring single off the bat of designated hitter Matt Brunnig to trim the NU lead back to three. Wilson was gunned down at home to end the threat, sliding into the wallow around the plate after a shallow single by eventual winning pitcher Taylor Meehan (1-1).

In fact, the dirt areas of the mostly-turf Friedman Diamond—the batter’s boxes and the mound—required constant maintenance, much to the chagrin of the benches and the grounds crew alike, throughout the soggy afternoon.

“It’s huge,” Brown said. “Especially on a day like today, it’s miserable, there’s lots of delays, things like that. So in order for the team to keep in it when everyone’s thinking about Princeton right now, it was good not to overlook this game and get a big win.”

—Staff writer Jonathan Lehman can be reached at jlehman@fas.harvard.edu.