Varsity Nine Fails Again

After trailing by a large margin early in the year, the Harvard varsity baseball's loss column has finally pulled even with the wins. Behind by as much as nine full games following the Crimson's tamous Florida "swing," the defeats collared the victories this past weekend, evening the team's season log at 17 up and 17 down.

The Crimson nine dropped three games in a 28-hour span between Friday and Saturday, marking the final weekend action of Harvard's baseball season. The varsity was mugged by Cornell on Friday afternoon (Score: 16-3), and came back on Saturday to drop two to Army (8-7 and 4-3), leaving only this Thursday's game with Northeastern to determine a winning or losing year.

As the score might indicate, Friday's contest with the Big Red amounted to a Big Fiasco: Harvard paraded five pitchers to the mound in the face of the 22-hit onslaught, and freshman starter Tim Clifford ultimately picked up the loss.

The cast of characters following Clifford's abbreviated two-plus inning stint were, in order of appearance: Jamie Werly, Ken Petkunas, Tom Pura, and Bob Larson. Doling out 12 walks and two gopher balls to the Cornellians, the Crimson pitching staff was ineffective in almost every inning.

Dave or Ken?

Dave Singleton provided the only moments of interest for the beaten up Crimson, cracking a two-run homer in the third inning and winding up the day with four hits in five trips to the plate.

Saturday afternoon proved somewhat more exciting, though the end result was the same. The "bright spot" award for the day went to pitcher Mark Linehan, accompanying his "hard luck" trophy since he was the loser in both games of the doubleheader anyway.

The twinbill opener against the Cadets went 13 innings, after Army tied the game up at 5-5 with a run in the seventh inning. With Linehan performing well in the extra innings, the Cadet offense was held at bay until the 13th when Dale Apple tripled to leadoff the inning.

Crimson coach Loyal Park then followed with a somewhat unorthodox move, ordering intentional walks issued to the next two batters. With the bases loaded, Warren Chellman delivered a two-run single, and a sacrifice fly followed that, giving Army an 8-5 bulge. Harvard's last-ditch rally in the bootom of the inning then fell short when Leon Goetz bounded out with the tying and winning runs on base.

In the second game, pinch-hitter Skip Deitz cracked a run-scoring single off Linehan in the seventh, breaking a 3-3 tie and sending Harvard to its 17th loss of the year.