Harvard's Season Comes to a Close

As it enters the final Ivy League weekend of the 2008 season, the Harvard baseball team finds itself in an unfamiliar position: playing the role of scrappy spoiler and taking the field with only pride to earn.

For the first time this century, the Crimson will enter the season’s last conference series already eliminated from playoff contention. Harvard (8-27, 7-9 Ivy) will host Rolfe Division and overall Ivy League leader Dartmouth (21-13, 12-4) for a doubleheader tomorrow at O’Donnell Field before traveling to Hanover, N.H. to wrap up the four-game set on Sunday. First pitch for each twinbill is scheduled for 1 p.m.

For Harvard’s graduating seniors and a team that struggled early in its league slate but has come on of late—sweeping last weekend’s series with division rival Brown—closing the season on an apparently meaningless high note carries important weight.

“We’re going to treat this weekend like everything’s riding on it because, for the seniors, it’s our last Ivy weekend as Harvard players,” captain Matt Vance said. “We want to go out there and work to come out on top, because we’re going to remember it forever.”

“When it’s an Ivy series, you’re excited about it, particularly when it’s a division rival,” coach Joe Walsh said.

More importantly, the Crimson has a chance to come out of the weekend with a winning record in Ivy play if it can manage to sweep the Big Green. But taking all four games from the division and league leader will be a tall order, even for Harvard’s streaking lineup and recently rock-solid weekend rotation. Dartmouth boasts an Ivy Pitcher of the Year candidate in lefty senior Russell Young (3.38 ERA) and a five-game winner in senior Chase Carpenter, and Harvard will need to work counts and put men on base to break the two aces’ rhythms. Matt Kramer, who has settled nicely into the cleanup spot in the Crimson lineup—going 9-for-16 with 6 RBI over the last five games—will need to continue his hot streak and bring those runners home.

“We’re hoping to get the running game going with Vance, [Dillon] O’Neill and [Matt] Rogers getting on base,” Walsh said. “Getting those guys on and running against their staff, that’s an essential for us.”

“He’s been trouble for us for three years,” Walsh adds of Russell. “He’s not going to beat himself.”

Still, Dartmouth’s recent success has stemmed from what it can do at the plate: it has scored seven runs or more in eight of its last nine games, and leads the league in team batting average (.313) and runs scored (253).

Captain Damon Wright and sophomore Nick Santomauro provide the muscle in the Big Green’s powerful offense, with both checking into the Ancient Eight’s top ten with seven and six round-trippers, respectively.

“We’re talking all the time about getting ahead, getting ahead, getting ahead,” Walsh said. “We have to get ahead in the count and can’t fall behind 2-0, 3-1 to those hitters. Watching Santomauro [last season], I just thought he didn’t have too many holes.”

As always, Harvard will look to its duo of senior starters, Shawn Haviland and Brad Unger, to keep its opponent off the scoreboard. Last weekend against Brown, each pitcher recorded a complete game victory to lead the Crimson to the weekend sweep.

“Our pitching’s been the key every time we go out to play,” Vance said. “I’m confident that our pitching will be able to continue its performance and keep [Dartmouth] out of double digits.”

The Big Green would have to drop all four games this weekend and see Brown take three of four from second-place Yale to relinquish its spot atop the Rolfe Division standings and its spot in the Ivy League Championship Series. But even if Harvard can’t spoil Dartmouth’s plans, it has some of its own: to prove its worth to the rest of the league after an unprecedented 1-22 start to its season.

“We know in the back of our minds that we have some respectability to gain,” Walsh said. “If we can take three or four, when it’s all over people will say that Harvard came on strong at the end. I think these guys want to fight.”

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