NOTEBOOK: Byrne, Seniors Take Final Bows

After captain Brendan Byrne played his final Ivy League games, coach Joe Walsh had the highest of his praises for the outgoing senior.

“He’s been the best captain I’ve ever had here, and I’ve had some great ones,” Walsh said. “As [assistant coach Gary] Donovan said, ‘He’s rewritten the book for captaincy.’”

This season, the “book” on Byrne included a hamstring injury, incurred last weekend against Brown. In his last Ivy games yesterday, playing through the pain, Byrne went 1-for-2 with two sacrifices in the opener and 3-for-5 with two RBI in the nightcap.

Byrne also left a lasting impression on his teammates.

“He’s been hurt and can barely run, but goes out there and it seems like he’s on base every time,” junior Shawn Haviland said. “He’s just been a great captain.”

Honored in a pregame ceremony in front of friends and family yesterday, Byrne’s focus was on a two-game sweep of Dartmouth to give his team the best chance to extend its season. And although a 2-1 loss in the first game made the second one irrelevant, his still made a difference with his leadership in the dugout.

“Even when we knew game two didn’t mean anything, he had us up and having fun,” Haviland said. “He’s been a great leader for us.”

“I like guys who are energetic, who have some fire in them, and he’s that type of guy,” Walsh said. “I certainly wish we had 30 guys like that. You win with those guys, and he’s a winner.”

THE LONG WAY HOME

Despite banging out 10 hits in the first game but pushing only one run across the plate, the Crimson scored early and often in a 7-6 victory in game two. Harvard would have liked to transfer some of its late production to the first game, which served as yet another instance of poor run support for Haviland, the staff ace.

“Haviland has pitched too many good games this year and last year and not gotten any help,” Byrne said.

Most of the Crimson’s game one struggles were due to Dartmouth starter Jeff Wilkerson, who slithered his way out of multiple jams to pick up the complete-game victory.

“We had our leadoff guy on in every inning, but [Wilkerson] did well to work out of jams,” Haviland said.

The bottom of the seventh inning provided the Crimson’s best chance, as it loaded the bases with one out. But Walsh’s decisions during a sixth-inning rally, when the Crimson pushed across its lone run of the contest, came back to haunt him.

“I had to run for Stack-Babich to get our first one in,” Walsh said. “And sure enough, his spot comes up in the next inning.”

The coach missed Stack-Babich’s hot bat with the game on the line. Justin Roth, pinch-hitting for Jon Roberts (who had pinch-run for Stack-Babich in the sixth), fouled out to first base on the first pitch he saw, and sophomore Matt Rogers hit into a force for the game’s final out.

OUT OF CONTROL

After Haviland went all seven innings in the opener, Walsh used an arsenal of hurlers in the nightcap. When freshman Eric Eadington seemed to lack his customary sharpness—Dartmouth loaded the bases in the top of the second on two hit batsmen and a walk—Walsh turned to sophomore Adam Cole, a converted reliever whose power fastball had worked the Crimson out of some late-inning jams in recent weeks.

But Cole struggled mightily with his control, too, amassing four walks and two wild pitches in 1 1/3 innings of relief.

Freshman Ian Bollinger emerged as the most effective of Walsh’s five hurlers, pitching three innings of relief and allowing only one unearned run en route to his first collegiate victory.

“It was really his first key situation,” Walsh said. “But he did a really nice job and deserved that victory.”

Junior Steffan Wilson, who had made only four appearances on the hill in 2007, moved in from third base and pitched the final two scoreless frames to pick up the save. Wilson struck out two in the eighth, exhibiting the command the Crimson had so lacked early in the contest.

—Staff writer Emily W. Cunningham can be reached at ecunning@fas.harvard.edu.