Baseball Falls to UMass, 6-5, in Finale

The Harvard baseball team has not enjoyed a pleasant season. Frustration, injuries and ultimately losses characterized the year.

With this in mind, Wednesday's match against UMass was a fitting last game. Harvard came from ahead to lose 6-5, after leading by four runs at one point.

The Crimson (13-22-1 overall, 7-13 Ivy), whose playoff hopes ended long ago, entered the game against a potent Minutemen club (30-15) preparing for the postseason. Yet Harvard started the game strong, seizing a 5-1 lead after three-and-a-half innings.

Harvard took a quick 3-0 lead in the first, knocking out UMass starter Steve Heaney after only one-third of an inning. The Crimson then scored single runs in the second and third innings, interrupted only by a single UMass run in the bottom of the second.

Harvard was staked to the 5-1 lead with the help of RBI hits by Dennis Doble, Mike Hochanadel and Craig Wilke. But UMass responded with the last five runs of the game, taking advantage of a porous Crimson defense that committed four errors and allowed two unearned runs.

Harvard pitcher Lee Mancini, making his first start of the year, did his best to keep the lead safe. He pitched five innings of four-hit, three-run (only one earned) ball, striking out four and walking none. Tony Lancette picked up for Mancini and pitched a scoreless sixth, but Ben Allen allowed two runs in the seventh.

With the score 5-5, Mike Cicero, coming off a scoreless five-inning relief stint against Boston College in which he earned the win, took the mound for the bottom of the seventh. With one out, he walked Mike Kersten, who was pinch-run for by Nick Ubaldo.

Ubaldo stood at third with two outs when an odd sequence of events led to the winning run. Cicero, pitching to catcher Wilke, wild-pitched Ubaldo home on an attempted squeeze. Cicero said that there was a mix-up on the pitch with Wilke, but the rare two-out suicide squeeze attempt must have added to the confusion.

"They tried a squeeze with two outs," Cicero said. "But there was some confusion on what pitch was called."

Cicero viewed this loss as typical of the team's performance this year.

"This game was the story of the season," he said. "They kept chipping away. Five runs should have been enough. Errors were a big part of the game, and you can't beat a team like UMass playing like that."

Season Notes

Harvard finished with a .371 winning percentage, its worst since 1954. In all fairness, however, the Crimson suffered significant injuries.

Captain Mike Giardi, catcher Bryan Brissette, and centerfielder Mark Levy were all out of the lineup for the last part of the year.

But that is little consolation to the players.

"This year has been very frustrating," said Cicero, who finished the season with a 1-3 record, one save, and a 3.86 ERA. "The injuries hurt us, but we haven't performed well as a team."

Harvard finished tied for last place with Brown in the Red Rolfe Division of the Ivy League. Yale, which finished with a 14-6 Ivy record (22-17 overall), won its third straight championship. (Two years ago, Yale won the last Intercollegiate Baseball League championship, the last in the history of the league that included the eight Ivy schools, Army and Navy. Last year, Yale won the first Ivy championship of the league's current postseason tournament.)