Sluggers Stumble Towards Ivy Cellar

The Harvard baseball team entered the 1995 season hoping to reassert itself after a disastrous season that left it with a the second-worst record in the Ivy League.

The 1994 campaign now seems like a rousing success after this spring's action, however. Despite an influx of talented freshmen, the team stumbled to one of the worst seasons in school history (10-25 overall 6-14 Ivy), plummeting it to the last place in the league.

Adding to the turmoil coach Leigh Hogan resigned on May 15, leaving the already struggling program with a serious leadership deficiency.

Despite losing five of its first seven games at the Collegiate Spring Baseball Classic in Florida, Harvard opened its league schedule in encouraging fashion, winning three of its first five the games against Ivy of rivals Columbia Princeton and eventual Ivy champion Penn.

Even in successful times, however, the Crimson displayed an inability to close out tight games that would prove fatal to its season.

In the Penn and Columbia doubleheaders sandwiched around a pair of extra-inning wins were two close losses. Particularly painful was the setback to the Lions in which Harvard blew a 3-0 lead through a pair of the errors.

From there, the season rapidly turned into the disaster of epic proportions, as the Crimson lost nine of its next 10 games, including four league setbacks. Typically, however, it was competitive in almost all the games, losing just two by more than four runs.

The misery culminated in a 12-3 embarrassment at the hands of Boston College in the opening round of the Beanpot Tournament on April 18 at Fenway Park.

Harvard won just four more games over the remainder of the season, ending the year on a seven-game losing streak that included two doubleheader sweeps at the hands of Dartmouth and a heartbreaking extra innings loss to a strong North eastern team.

"We have had so many disappointing losses," freshman outfielder Bret Vankoski said of the Dartmouth games. "But that hasn't kept us from going out and trying hard. There are no real losers on this team."

Five days after the season-ending loss to Massachusetts, Hogan announced his resignation, citing the demands of raising a family and continuing his teaching career at a local high school.

The new coach will inherit a squad whose nucleus consists primarily of younger players, including sophomore infielders Mike Hochanadel and Peter Albers and the freshman outfield trio of Vankoski, Brian Ralph and Aaron Kessler. Junior lefthander Frank Hogan also emerged as the staff's ace by season's end.

These players will have to step up to fill the holes left by numerous departing seniors. Captain Bo Bernhard, infielder Joe Weidenbach outfielder James Crowley and pitcher Jamie Irving will all be lost to graduation.