Crimson Nine Top Brown, Northeastern

"I'm really just a singles hitter," Mike Stenhouse said Saturday after his second two-home-run game in two days.

Hey, somebody's pulling our leg here.

The fact is that Stenhouse and his fourhomer, 7-rbi performance led the Harvard baseball team to two big wins over the weekend at home and raised the batmen's record to an awesome 18-3.

Saturday afternoon Harvard topped Northeastern, for the second time this year, by a 7-4 margin. The win gave the Crimson a 6-1 record in the Greater Boston League, so Harvard must beat Brandeis on the 16th to take the G.B.L. title.

Northeastern was not as friendly as Harvard had found them 18 days ago. The Huskies scratched and clawed to a 2-2 deadlock at the end of four, but the Crimson jumped all over Northeastern starter Paul Bevilacqua in the fifth for four runs.

Rick Pearce led off with a single, stole second, and scored when Charlie Santos-Buch's fly ball wasn't even judged by the Northeastern center fielder. Santos-Buch didn't wait around long, as Stenhouse then cranked his first four-bagger of the game to make it 5-2. Mark Bingham then reached second on a two-base error and was singled in by Burke St. John.

Stenhouse donated another ball to the right field construction site two innings later to round out the Harvard scoring at seven. Northeastern put a little scare into the five-run Harvard lead with two runs off Ron Stewart in the ninth, before Jamie Werly came on finally to get the last out.

Stewart put in an encouraging performance after a couple of tough luck losses in his last two starts. He scattered eight hits and gave up three earned runs as he raised his season slate to 5-2.

Harvard got single tallies in the second and third innings. The first run came when Paul Halas singled, went to third on Tom Joyce's safety, and scored on a single to left by Rich Trembowicz. Dave Singleton led off the third with a 350-foot triple to right and Santos-Buch pushed him across with an infield hit.

On Friday the Crimson hosted a highly-regarded squad from Brown and turned them away 9-2.

The Crimson led all the way in this one. In the first inning Harvard got that one run that coaches always play for when Singleton led off with a single to center, was sacrificed to second by Santos-Buch, and was knocked in by Stenhouse's (that man again) single to right.

Stenhouse (3 for 3 on the day) then went into his one-man wrecking crew act. In the third, after Santos-Buch had been decked by a pitch, he deposited a Bruce Pearson curve about two steps short of the trainer's room at Dillon to make it 3-0. Two innings later he stamped another Pearson bender airmail, this time going with the outside pitch to the opposite field.

The big freshman second-baseman, now with six homers on the year, said afterwards "Pearson served me up two curveballs that just hung there and said 'hit me'."

Halas got into the power-hitting act momentarily, lashing a triple to right in the sixth. He came home with Harvard's fifth run when St. John sacrificed him in with a fly ball to right.

Brown finally scored off complete-game victor Paul McOsker in the eighth, getting two runs on three hits, one of them a home run. Other than this momentary lapse, McOsker was the same steady pitcher he was at Princeton the weekend before, scattering 13 hits while fanning seven.

Harvard had its big inning in the eighth when it no longer mattered, as the Crimson stung four hits for four runs, the big shot being Trembowicz's two-run single. Stenhouse, for once, did not figure in the scoring.

THE NOTEBOOK: It's Yale today in a big Eastern League doubleheader starting down at Soldiers Field at 1:00 p.m. Coach Loyal Park says he'll go with Timmy Clifford (3-0) in the opener and most likely Werly in the evening-cap.

Harvard pitcher Steve Baloff doesn't have to worry about a job after he finishes up at Harvard; the lanky Californian showed great talent announcing the batters on the P.A. system during the Northeastern game. May 6   123  456  789  R  H  E Brown  000  000  020  2  13  2 HARVARD  102  011  04X  9  11  2 Batteries:  B--Pearson (1), Wright (8) and Hand. H--McOsker (W: 4-0) and Trembowicz.            

May 7   123  456  789  R  H  E Northeastern  001  100  002  4  8  3 HARVARD  011  040  10X  7  12  1 Batteries: N--Bevilacqua (L), Peterson (5), Kelly (8) and McKinnon.             H--Stewart (W:5-2), Werly (9), and Trembowicz, Joyce (9).            

May 7   123  456  789  R  H  E Northeastern  001  100  002  4  8  3 HARVARD  011  040  10X  7  12  1 Batteries: N--Bevilacqua (L), Peterson (5), Kelly (8) and McKinnon.             H--Stewart (W:5-2), Werly (9), and Trembowicz, Joyce (9).