Baseballers Go 5-7 on Rough Spring Break Trip

While thousands of fans cheered the return of America's favorite pastime on Monday afternoon, the Crimson boys of summer opened the '94 season over spring break, playing eight games in seven days in Florida.

After splitting the eight-game road trip the Crimson (5-7 overall, 1-3 Ivy League) began its Ivy League campaign with away double-headers against Princeton and Cornell over the weekend.

On Friday the Crimson managed to salvage a 3-2 victory (WP: Ben Allen 2-0) over the Tigers after losing the first game 6-7 (LP: Michael Cicero 0-1).

The first game of the twin-bill in Princeton went eleven innings as the Crimson broke a -4 tie in the eleventh with two runs only to see Tigers tally three in the bottom of the frame to steal the victory.

The 3-2 Crimson victory in the night-cap was shortened in the top of the sixth inning due to darkness.

The Big Red swept the Crimson though on Saturday taking 4-7 and 2-3 decisions as junior Scott Davidson evened his record at 1-1 and junior Jamie Irving fell to 0-3.

"We played 8 of the 12 games well over the break," said head coach Leigh Hogan. "We played good ball in Princeton but bad against Cornell."

The Spring Trip began on a sour note as the Crimson dropped its first three games--6-8 against Northern Iowa, and 1-11 against Ohio State.

Harvard bounced back though with have straight wins--beating Niagara 11-3, as sophomore Chip Harris earned his first win and then sweeping a double-header against Canisius. Davidson and Allen took the decisions in the sweep.

After falling to Niagara 3-5 in the next game, the Crimson thrashed Manhattan 12-0 as junior Tim Vanech took the win in the laugher.

"There were a number of good individual efforts," said Hogan. "The pitching was fair at best. We had some good outings and some bad ones."

"Our hitting was above expectation," said senior pitcher Tony Lancette. "We just didn't throw strikes sometimes."

In the twelve games Crimson hurlers have given up 52 walks.

The Crimson fielding also saw several lapses leading to a total of 21 unearned runs over the twelve-game stretch.

"Our fielders have to make the routine plays and our pitchers have to throw strikes," said senior infielder Eric Weissman. "Otherwise the innings get too long and the fielders get back on their heels."

After only four Ivy League games it is too early to call any team a frontrunner in the race for the Ancient Eight crown.

Ivy League baseball is divided into two divisions. Harvard, along with Yale, Brown, Dartmouth make up the Rolfe Division while the other four squads play in the Gehrig division.

"The Ivy League is very competitive," said Hogan. "All eight teams have a shot."

"Yale has been the front-runner the last few years in our division," said Lancette. "But we can compete with them this year."

"We definitely have the talent to win the Ivy crown this year," said Weissman. "But we have to win as a team--produce runs together and take care of the basics."

The Crimson start has still left some question marks about their possible success this season.

"In college baseball," said Hogan, "you have to come together early and we haven't really done that yet."

The Crimson hope to start pulling themselves together as they take the field again tomorrow at New Hampshire hoping to avenge last year's 1-0 loss.