Despite Weather, Baseball Races Heat Up

Mother Nature's incessant interference with baseball last week may have dampened the spirits of some Ivy League enthusiasts, but the week's competition has still precipitated an exciting race to finish off the season.

Despite the postponement of the Beanpot tournament due to a discouraging quantity of water falling from the sky, Ivy League baseball did anything but drizzle.

Both divisional races heated up, and both division leaders--including the Crimson in the Red Rolfe division--encountered stormy sailing.

Harvard (11-9, 5-3 Ivy) split two double-headers, against Columbia and Penn, leaving them perched precariously atop the Rolfe totem pole, with only one game separating them from second-place Dartmouth.

Both series included close victories and not-so-close defeats for the Crimson, who took 3-1 and 5-3 wins over the Lions and the Quakers respectively, but suffered 0-10 and 1-8 losses against the same teams.

The win against Columbia was spearheaded by a brilliant pitching performance from junior southpaw Frank Hogan, who leads the list of Ivy pitching leaders with an ERA of only 1.93 in 14 innings played.

The victory over Penn was sparked by the heroics of freshman designated hitter Hal Carey, who went 3-for-4 in the contest with two doubles and two RBI, including the game winner.

The performance, coupled with an outstanding week in which he had three extra base hits in four games and chalked up a .636 slugging percentage, was enough to earn Carey Rookie of the Week honors for the second consecutive week.

But despite the downpour of glory on individual players, the Crimson's heels are still in immediate danger of being nipped in the Rolfe race.

The nipper in question, the second-place Big Green (5-15, 4-4), is riding a two-game winning streak following a tough doubleheader against the Quakers.

Penn drowned Dartmouth twice on Saturday, 9-0 and 17-4.

Dartmouth's .250 overall winning percentage may not be enough to strike fear in the hearts of opposing players, and the shower of runs Penn scored--26 in two games--on Dartmouth's hapless pitching staff doesn't make them seem like title contenders.

But a pair of easy wins against Columbia, 13-3 and 4-0, has left first place within Dartmouth's reach.

Elsewhere in the Rolfe division, Yale (14-13, 3-5) and Brown (7-12, 3-5) find themselves tied for last place following disappointing weekends.

Both teams were swept in doubleheaders by Princeton, which annihilated Brown, 20-2 and 4-1, and Yale, 5-4 and 4-0. Yale managed to eke out a sweep of Cornell, however, while Brown split games with them.

The Elis toppled the Big Red behind the performance of outfielder Keith Caggiano, who blasted a three-run homer in the first game. Caggiano's performance earned him Player of the Week honors.

The Bears lost a tough contest, 8-2, against the Big Red before regrouping and winning the second game 5-4.

In the Lou Gehrig division, first-place Penn (17-12, 9-3) continued its dominating performance with an easy sweep of Dartmouth before struggling against Harvard.

The Quakers' loss in the second game against the Crimson allowed the second-place Tigers (10-14, 5-3) to gain crucial ground in the Gehrig race.

Princeton's easy victories over Brown and Yale left it only two games behind.

Struggling to hang on to third place, Cornell (10-16, 3-5) suffered a rough weekend, winning only one of its two games against Brown before being swept by Yale.

The Big Red remains only one game on top of the pathetic Lions (10-21, 4-8), who are in sole possession of dead last in the league.

Columbia's one win of the week, the 10-0 shutout of Harvard, was spearheaded by sophomore pitcher Chris Vogel, who tossed Columbia's first shutout of the season.