Baseball Hits Rough Spot Goes 1-3 vs. Dartmouth

Fighting the weather and a prolonged slump, the Harvard baseball team went 1-3 against Dartmouth over a long home-and-away weekend series.

Playing at Soldier's Field on Saturday, the Crimson lost the first game of the doubleheader, 8-7, before going on to win the second contest, 11-8. After the scheduled Sunday doubleheader at Dartmough was rained out, Harvard lost both makeup games on Monday, 4-0 and 10-2. The two losses made the Crimson 1-6-1 over its last eight games.

Harvard's record after the series stood at 12-20 -1 (7-13 Ivy), while Dartmouth escaped the series with a 15-20 (9-11 Ivy) ledger. This series marked the end of the Ivy League season for the Crimson.

Saturday's games were slugfests characterized by early and prolific scoring. The Crimson took a quick 6-0 lead in the first game on the strength of a three-run first and three-run second. With ace Jamie Irving on the mound pitching lefthanded, the lead seemed safe.

But as has happened all too often this year, the Harvard defense came up short. With the score 6-4 in the fifth, the Crimson committed three errors, leading to a four-run inning that put the Big Green ahead, 8-6.

Mike Cicero replaced Irving after five innings, and he pitched two innings of scoreless ball to keep Harvard close. The Crimson clawed back for one run in the bottom of the seventh to make the score 8-7, but could not push the tying run across.

"Defensively, we were really sloppy," junior Jamie Crowley said. "We committed three errors in one inning. There is nothing the pitchers can do about that. The pitchers were doing their job, but we just didn't catch the ball."

In the second game, Dartmouth, and not Harvard, was the team that jumped out to an early lead it eventually lost. The Big Green scored six runs in the first against Harvard starter Chip Harris. Harvard, however, scored three runs in the second and seven in the third to take a lead it would never relinquish.

The Crimson bunched together singles in their seven-run third-inning explosion to do the damage.

"We strung six or seven hits together, just a bunch of singles," Crowley, who went 3-3 with an RBI, said.

Every Harvard starter got at least one basehit, and except for three doubles, all of the Crimson's hits were singles.

Harris settled down after the first, allowing only two more runs in gaining his third win of the year against only one defeat. What explained Harris's mid-game transformation? Even Harris himself isn't sure.

"It was probably the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me," Harris said. "I felt good in the first inning. The ball was moving, I was putting it where I wanted. They were just hitting it. When we scored in the second and third, we expected to win. When we start scoring, we're a different team."

The focus of Monday's games was not hitting, but fine pitching performances from Dartmouth's two best starters, Steve Murphy and Rick Macdonald. Murphy took a no-hitter into the sixth inning before senior Bill Madden bounced an infield single to the hole at shortstop. Murphy, who owns the third lowest ERA in the Ivies at 2.71, finished with a one-hit shutout, striking out two and walking two.

Dartmouth scored all four of its runs in the third, highlighted by Jake Isler's two-run double. Junior Lee Mancini pitched a complete game for Harvard, allowing four runs and six hits over six innings.

"He [Murphy} spotted his pitches well," Crowley said. "We hit the ball, but just right at people."

The second game was more of the same. Dartmouth scored four runs in the first, and repeated that total in the second thanks to Craig Pawling's grand slam.

The Big Green led 10-0 after five. The Crimson posted two runs in the sixth to make the final score 10-2.

Macdonald scattered seven hits and two runs over seven innings to get the win and improve his record to 2-5.