Crimson Wins In Season Finale

Harvard completed its schedule with a win yesterday, inching past Northeastern, 4-3, at O’Donnell Field to move back to .500 on the season.

The Crimson (18-18) took its third straight from the Huskies (21-14), the 2007 Beanpot champs, thanks especially to contributions from three of its six seniors. Senior Jason Brown, getting a rare start, held the potent Northeastern offense to three runs in 5 1/3 innings, and classmates Brendan Byrne and Andrew Casey contributed two hits apiece in what was likely their final collegiate outing—as of press time, Harvard was still trying to schedule an additional non-conference matchup for some time this week.

“Good group of guys,” head coach Joe Walsh said of his seniors. “I thought [they] led the way, at least getting us fired up this year. There was a lot of energy in that class, and that wasn’t just on the field, that was off the field as well.”

Brown, in his first start since 2005, coincidentally also against Northeastern, worked in and out of trouble all afternoon, but exited in the sixth with the game tied at 3, having allowed eight hits and two walks while striking out four.

”By the end I was definitely a little tired,” said Brown, who threw a season-high 89 pitches. “With that mindset up there, knowing that every pitch could be my last pitch, I wad dipping as deep down into the tank as I could.”

“Brown threw a hell of a game,” fellow senior Jake Levine said. “It’s a great way to go out for him.”

Sophomore lefty Ryan Watson relieved Brown with one out and runners on second and third, and promptly escaped the jam with one pitch—Dave Fisher lined it back through the box, Watson nabbed it, and sent it over to third base to double off the baserunner. He went on to deliver his most impressive performance to date: 3 1/3 innings of hitless relief to go with five strikeouts.

“It was great to see him come in there,” Brown said, “bail me out there, and come out and shove the last few innings.”

Freshman Chris Rouches made a winner of Watson with a go-ahead, two-out RBI single in the bottom half of the sixth.

Junior Brad Unger came on to try to earn his first save of the season with a runner on second and two outs in the ninth. Unger walked hulking three-hitter Mike Tamsin intentionally and issued a free pass to the cleanup man to load the bases before inducing Josh Porter to foul out to first to end it.

The big offensive blow for Harvard came, not surprisingly, off the bat of junior Matt Vance. After Tamsin had given Northeastern a 2-1 lead in top of the fifth inning with a solo home run, Vance knotted the game by blasting a triple to right-center and came into score on Byrne’s sacrifice fly, the captain’s second RBI of the day.

“Vance had that big knock there, the triple,” Walsh said. “He’s the guy that doesn’t want the season to end right now. He’s just on fire. He’s had a great second half…He’s one of the best hitters that we’ve ever had.”

Byrne completes his captaincy as the team’s leading hitter with a .342 average, ranking just ahead of Vance’s .341 mark. Vance leads the team with 30 runs batted in, compared to Byrne in second place with 20.

Despite the crisp win over Northeastern, the year ends in disappointment for the Crimson, which finished in second place in the Red Rolfe Division with a 12-8 Ivy League record, its worst since 2003. Without an invitation to this weekend’s Ivy Championship Series, the seniors took the moments after yesterday’s to reflect on their time in a Harvard uniform.

“It’s so cliché, but it does fly by,” Byrne said. “We were talking about how big this place seemed when we you walk in as a freshman, and now it’s like your second home.”

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