Baseball Finishes Road Swing with Two Wins over Houston Baptist

After a long and tiring stay in Texas, the Harvard baseball team evidently saved the best for last.

The Crimson took two out of three from Houston Baptist in a series spanning from Friday to Sunday. After dropping the first contest, Harvard went on to defeat the Huskies, 4-3, and took the final game by a 6-1 margin.

The wins capped off a trip in which the Crimson played ten games in ten days.

“Pretty much, over this trip, we want to leave it with good emotion,” sophomore infielder Tanner Anderson said. “We want to come back to Ivies and use the play against these much more difficult teams to help us in the Ivies and hopefully get us a couple wins there.”

HARVARD 6, HOUSTON BAPTIST 1

In its final game of the trip Sunday afternoon, Harvard outplayed the Huskies from start to finish to nab its second straight win by a score of 6-1.

Freshman pitcher Sean Poppen came through with a huge performance on the mound for the visiting squad. Poppen provided much-needed relief to a fatigued Crimson rotation by throwing 113 pitches in a complete game effort.

Aside from a second inning in which Houston Baptist notched two hits and a run, Poppen was flawless for much of the game. The freshman went the next six innings without giving up a hit and got Harvard back in the dugout quickly with a number of one-two-three innings.

“We couldn’t ask anything more of our freshman and sophomore class,” Anderson said. “To come in without any college experience for the freshmen especially, and for them to be doing as well as they are, it definitely helps the team tremendously.”

The Crimson took advantage of sloppy defense from the Huskies, who committed seven errors in the game. After scoring one run in the fourth, sixth, and seventh innings, Harvard broke the game open in the ninth with three runs, two of which came on wild pitches.

Sophomore utility Mike Martin fueled the Crimson with a hit, two RBIs, two walks, and three runs scored. Another top offensive contributor was sophomore catcher Ethan Ferreira, who notched a game-high two hits.

HARVARD 4, HOUSTON BAPTIST 3

Harvard earned its first victory since the opening game of the season on Saturday afternoon, refusing to let a close one slip away in the late innings.

Although the Huskies showed signs of a rally in the eighth and the ninth, senior pitcher Jordan Haviland got the best of the Houston Baptist batters in clutch situations and sealed the 4-3 victory for the Crimson.

Freshman pitcher Matt Sanders earned the win for Harvard, giving up two earned runs in seven innings of work.

“We did a good job of pitching and the defense behind us was doing pretty well,” Anderson said. “It was fundamental baseball, so it was good to finally be able to play up to our standards. We definitely did hit the ball better today and it was spread among everyone instead of just one or two guys swinging it.”

The Crimson first scored in the top of the third. Anderson led off with a single and was moved over to third before a two-out double from Kregel plated him for the first run of the game.

After scoring once in each of the next two innings, the final run of the day—and what would eventually prove to be the game-winner—came off a seventh-inning single from freshman catcher DJ Link.

All but one Harvard starter registered a hit on the day. Martin and senior infielder Rob Wineski paced the offense, each contributing three hits.

HOUSTON BAPTIST 12, HARVARD 6

In the first game of the series against the Huskies, the Crimson started off on the wrong foot.

Harvard surrendered 11 runs in the first four innings, and although the Crimson offense pushed some runs across the board later, it would not be enough as Houston Baptist claimed a 12-6 victory.

The top of the Harvard order came to life Friday night, as the first five hitters combined to post nine of the team’s 13 hits. Ferreira went three-for-five with a triple.

Despite finding itself in a big hole after four frames, the Crimson refused to quit and scored two runs on a pair of singles in the top of the fifth.

After pushing across one more off a Kregel double two innings later, Harvard scored three more runs in the ninth, highlighted by a Ferreira double that plated two.

“The trip is all about experience,” said sophomore third baseman Nick Saathoff. “We have a lot of young guys who haven’t had that much experience. So we’re trying to get as much experience as we can heading into the Ivy season.”

—Staff writer David Steinbach can be reached at samanthalin@college. Follow him on Twitter at @BigBach12.