Giant Killers

Harvard 7, UCLA 2.

Many first saw the news of the Harvard baseball team's upset of No. 4 UCLA on the front page of ESPNet Sportszone, the popular internet sports news service. Harvard players had spoken of national recognition all season, but they had not proven themselves truly worthy until that victory.

When Harvard defeated No. 8 Miami over spring break, the nation chuckled, surprised but indifferent. The 9-6 win had, after all, come on the heels of two routs by the Hurricanes.

When the Crimson demolished its Ivy League schedule--with the notable exception of the Princeton Tigers--en route to an Ancient Eight championship and the team's first 30-win season in 23 years, Harvard sports fans may have taken notice, but once again the nation was unimpressed. After all, someone had to win the traditionally weak Ivy League every year, right?

When Harvard received its seeding in the NCAA Midwest Regional Tournament, sixth in a six-team field, scheduled to battle top-seeded UCLA in the first round, the doubters of Harvard baseball--and Ivy League baseball in general--ho-hummed. UCLA was stocked with redshirt athletes and future Major Leaguers; Harvard was peopled by the future of consulting.

But today, its season over after back-to-back tournament losses to host Oklahoma State and a vengeful UCLA, Harvard baseball is truly back on the map.

The Harvard baseball team is The Crimson's team of the year because two seasons ago, in its last year under former coach Leigh Hogan, Harvard finished last in the Red Rolfe division with a 10-25 overall record; because last season the Crimson came one ill-fated

1996

Sports Statistics

Record: 34-16, 18-2 Ivy

Ivy Finish: First

Coach: Joe Walsh

Key Players: Captain Peter Albers; Senior Frank Hogan; Junior Brian Ralph; Sophomore Andrew Duffell

1997

playoff series short of an Ivy League title; because this year's trip to the tournament ran through Princeton, the same team that beat Harvard in last season's Ivy Championship series.

All the elements necessary for the moniker "of the year" are there: patience, redemption and finally proven greatness.

But the truth is that this team would have been chosen even if it had lost its NCAA play-in series to Patriot League-champion Army and not gotten the chance to tally two victories in the tournament. The story of Harvard baseball this season begins, ends and middles with the Princeton Tigers.

Second-year coach Joe Walsh's first season at the helm was largely successful. Harvard finished 23-17, including an Ivy League-best 14-6.

The Crimson even entered the championship series on the heels of an 11-10 victory over UMass, avenging an earlier Beanpot loss. Remember this scenario: it will come up again.

The Tigers won the first two games of the best-of-three series. Harvard shot itself in the foot in the first game, committing four errors in a 15-6 loss. In the second game, sophomore Quinn Schafer, then a freshman, was bested in a 1-0 pitcher's duel.

The season was over, but not forgotten.

The 1997 Harvard baseball team proved early in the season that it was at least as good as last year's team. Harvard's celebrated spring break win over Miami was not the only wave the Crimson made in Florida, as it also topped Florida International and lost two close games to Stetson. It was a 5-6 road trip, but it should not have been that good.

"Even in the losses, we played hard," Albers said of the Florida trip. "The fact that we beat good teams down south proved to ourselves that we are a good team. Not only did we have the talent, but we could translate it into positive results."

Harvard's first six Ivy League games--two at Columbia, two more at Penn and two home games against Cornell--saw six victories. None of the wins were convincing, but such is the way of Walsh's team.

"We work hard all season to win close ballgames, because we're not a 'hit the ball out of the yard' type of club," Walsh said.

Harvard baseball under Walsh has always been based on a simple formula of solid defense, an aggressive running game and timely hitting. Harvard's offense this season was largely faceless, as each of the starting nine had several clutch performances throughout the course of the season.

"It got to a point in the Ivy League that we never thought we would lose," Albers said. "It wasn't a question of whether we were going to win, but who would come through in the clutch."

Indeed the list of All-Ivy players on this team--Ivy League Player of the Year Brian Ralph, Pitcher of the Year Frank Hogan, first baseman Peter Albers (first team), sophomore pitcher Andrew Duffell and sophomore right fielder Andrew Huling (second team) and junior designated hitter Brett Vankoski, sophomore pitcher Donald Jamieson and sophomore catcher Jason Keck (honorable mention)--is hardly distinguishable from some of the omissions.

The also-rans include sure-handed shortstop David Forst, .333-hitting left fielder Aaron Kessler and sophomore infielders Hal Carey and Peter Woodfork, each of whom ended the season on fire at the plate.

Ralph and Hogan, who received the most prestigious individual honors on the team, were each incarnations of a team philosophy. Ralph's routine run-saving catches in center were the backbone of his game just as defense was this team's constant; his team-leading 24 stolen bases came both from his own prodigious speed and Walsh's firm belief in the hit-and-run; his .390 average and unexpected pop at the plate (six HR and 36 RBI in 50 games) were Harvard's offense in a nutshell: you never knew where the big hits were going to come from.

Hogan was not the hardest thrower in the Ivy League, he did not have the league's nastiest curveball and he was never totally satisfied with his pitching performance. But in eight of his 10 decisions, Hogan came away with a "W." By no means overpowering, Hogan was a veteran who knew how to pitch and who knew how to get big outs when he needed them.

"This year I probably had the most poise on the hill I've had in college," Hogan said. "Whenever we got down, I stayed confident."

Harvard did not win any of its first six games by more than three runs. But the big hits and pitches were always somehow there just when Walsh needed them.

At 6-0, the Harvard baseball team was sitting on top of the world. But just as Skywalker had to confront Vader in order to become a true Jedi, Harvard had to beat Princeton before it could truly take itself seriously.

The Tigers came into Cambridge for an April 13 doubleheader against the undefeated Crimson with a 6-15 record, including a 1-5 mark against Ivy League opponents. On paper, the matchup looked like an easy one for Harvard.

And for most of the opener, it was. Harvard took a 6-0 lead into the final inning. Jamieson was pitching a six-hit shutout through six and two-thirds innings and was one strike away from completing Harvard's seventh victory of the season.

Then, with a runner on second, Princeton's Justin Griffin rapped an infield single to third. Jamieson hit the next batter. The next hitter doubled to right.

By the time the half-inning was over, eight Tigers had crossed the plate and the Crimson had fallen victim to one of the worst collapses in team history.

Again, Harvard had shot itself in the foot against Princeton. Demoralized after the 8-6 loss, the Crimson fell 2-0 in the nightcap. The losing pitcher in the second game was, eerily, Schafer.

But unlike last season, the Crimson had a chance for redemption, and took it.

The turning point in the season might have been when we lost two to Princeton," Hogan said. "We blew the game, but that might have been the best thing that happened to us. After that we never took an out for granted all season."

Harvard played out the rest of its season like a team possessed. Yale came into town the next weekend sitting undefeated atop the Red Rolfe division standings. The Crimson swept the Elis that weekend behind solid pitching efforts by Hogan, sophomore James Kalyvas and Duffell, followed by a 16-run barrage to close out the series.

After an expected weekend sweep of Brown, Harvard faced a four-game weekend series with Dartmouth. The Big Green entered the series trailing the Crimson by two games. With Yale also two games behind, Harvard could clinch the division title with three wins.

Playing in the inaugural games for newly christened O'Donnell Field, the Crimson exploded for 18 runs in the first game, with Vankoski and Ralph each leaving the yard, to take an 18-3 victory. In the nightcap, Albers drove in the winning run with an infield single to give Harvard a 7-6 win and a share of the division title.

Ralph homered again the next afternoon in Hanover to help the Crimson to a 12-3 win over the Big Green. The division title was solely Harvard's.

Later in the week, Harvard took down No. 18 UMass, avenging the Minutemen's Beanpot victory earlier in the season. Once Princeton defeated Penn in an Ivy League championship play-in game, the stage was set just as it had been the year before--the Crimson would face the Tigers for the Ivy title.

Princeton entered the series with just a 10-10 record, but by then Harvard's players knew that sometimes in baseball, records just don't matter.

In fact Princeton taught that lesson again in the first game of the championship series, beating the Crimson 2-1 and handing Duffell his first loss of the year. Hogan, pitching in the second game of the best-of-three series, was faced with a must-win situation to avoid a repeat of last season.

This time, however, there would be no sweep by the Tigers. After Princeton jumped out to an early lead, Hogan turned in a gritty performance to top Princeton, 4-2.

"That was a big, big win," Albers said. "Right then, I think we knew that we were going to take the series."

The victory broke a string of five straight losses to Princeton. With the tiger, err monkey, off its back, the Crimson closed out the series in commanding fashion the following afternoon, winning 22-4 and forcing an NCAA Regional best-of-three play-in series with Army.

The Crimson disposed of the Cadets in three games, sandwiching a 6-5 loss in the second game between victories in the first and third games, 12-1 and 4-1. Jamieson, who also recorded the victory in the clincher over the Tigers, pitched a five-hit, complete-game gem in the rubber match to send Harvard to its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1984.

The news came out of Stillwater, Oklahoma the following Thursday afternoon: Harvard 7, UCLA 2. Hogan, pitching in what turned out to be his last start for the Crimson, scattered six singles over eight-plus innings for his eighth win of the season.

"I knew that UCLA wasn't respecting us and that I could key in on that," Hogan said. "Every hitter came up trying to hit a grand slam with no one on base."

Typically, every hitter in the Crimson lineup recorded a hit.

Harvard beat Stetson the next day 8-6, as Vankoski drove in three runs and Duffell kept the Crimson in the game over six and two-thirds innings for his seventh victory.

The win set up a matchup with Oklahoma State the following morning: a win, and Harvard would be one victory away from the College World Series. A loss and the Crimson would have to win that evening and then sweep a doubleheader the next day in order to take the region.

The final score was OSU 10, Harvard 7. The Cowboys jumped to an early 6-1 lead, then put the game away with three in the eighth. The Crimson mounted a four-run rally in the ninth and brought the tying run to the plate, but came up short.

That night, UCLA avenged its earlier loss with a 14-9 drubbing to end Harvard's Cinderella run.

"I don't think we played over our heads the entire season," Albers said. "We did what we thought we could do, which was win the Ivy League and make a statement in the tournament."

The twist of this story is that it need not end here. Harvard graduates five players: Albers, Hogan, reserve third baseman Mike Hochanadel, reserve catcher Craig Wilke and pitcher Bart Brush.

They will be difficult to replace, but a strong contingent of sophomore arms has another year of experience under its belt.

"We're still a young team," Albers said. "None of us are irreplaceable. [Younger players] can pull from experience at Oklahoma State the same way we pulled from experience losing in the Ivy League championship [last season]."

The starting staff, anchored by Duffell and Jamieson, also welcomes the return of a healthy Schafer. The sophomore southpaw, who was named to the All-Ivy first team last year, battled injuries throughout the season.

With the Ivy League Player of the Year returning, a full arsenal of young guns and a year of playoff experience under its belt, Harvard is indubitably the team to beat in 1998.CrimsonAshley S. MarynickSophomore PHOTO WOODFORK vs. Cornell, April 12, 1997

1996

Sports Statistics

Record: 34-16, 18-2 Ivy

Ivy Finish: First

Coach: Joe Walsh

Key Players: Captain Peter Albers; Senior Frank Hogan; Junior Brian Ralph; Sophomore Andrew Duffell

1997

playoff series short of an Ivy League title; because this year's trip to the tournament ran through Princeton, the same team that beat Harvard in last season's Ivy Championship series.

All the elements necessary for the moniker "of the year" are there: patience, redemption and finally proven greatness.

But the truth is that this team would have been chosen even if it had lost its NCAA play-in series to Patriot League-champion Army and not gotten the chance to tally two victories in the tournament. The story of Harvard baseball this season begins, ends and middles with the Princeton Tigers.

Second-year coach Joe Walsh's first season at the helm was largely successful. Harvard finished 23-17, including an Ivy League-best 14-6.

The Crimson even entered the championship series on the heels of an 11-10 victory over UMass, avenging an earlier Beanpot loss. Remember this scenario: it will come up again.

The Tigers won the first two games of the best-of-three series. Harvard shot itself in the foot in the first game, committing four errors in a 15-6 loss. In the second game, sophomore Quinn Schafer, then a freshman, was bested in a 1-0 pitcher's duel.

The season was over, but not forgotten.

The 1997 Harvard baseball team proved early in the season that it was at least as good as last year's team. Harvard's celebrated spring break win over Miami was not the only wave the Crimson made in Florida, as it also topped Florida International and lost two close games to Stetson. It was a 5-6 road trip, but it should not have been that good.

"Even in the losses, we played hard," Albers said of the Florida trip. "The fact that we beat good teams down south proved to ourselves that we are a good team. Not only did we have the talent, but we could translate it into positive results."

Harvard's first six Ivy League games--two at Columbia, two more at Penn and two home games against Cornell--saw six victories. None of the wins were convincing, but such is the way of Walsh's team.

"We work hard all season to win close ballgames, because we're not a 'hit the ball out of the yard' type of club," Walsh said.

Harvard baseball under Walsh has always been based on a simple formula of solid defense, an aggressive running game and timely hitting. Harvard's offense this season was largely faceless, as each of the starting nine had several clutch performances throughout the course of the season.

"It got to a point in the Ivy League that we never thought we would lose," Albers said. "It wasn't a question of whether we were going to win, but who would come through in the clutch."

Indeed the list of All-Ivy players on this team--Ivy League Player of the Year Brian Ralph, Pitcher of the Year Frank Hogan, first baseman Peter Albers (first team), sophomore pitcher Andrew Duffell and sophomore right fielder Andrew Huling (second team) and junior designated hitter Brett Vankoski, sophomore pitcher Donald Jamieson and sophomore catcher Jason Keck (honorable mention)--is hardly distinguishable from some of the omissions.

The also-rans include sure-handed shortstop David Forst, .333-hitting left fielder Aaron Kessler and sophomore infielders Hal Carey and Peter Woodfork, each of whom ended the season on fire at the plate.

Ralph and Hogan, who received the most prestigious individual honors on the team, were each incarnations of a team philosophy. Ralph's routine run-saving catches in center were the backbone of his game just as defense was this team's constant; his team-leading 24 stolen bases came both from his own prodigious speed and Walsh's firm belief in the hit-and-run; his .390 average and unexpected pop at the plate (six HR and 36 RBI in 50 games) were Harvard's offense in a nutshell: you never knew where the big hits were going to come from.

Hogan was not the hardest thrower in the Ivy League, he did not have the league's nastiest curveball and he was never totally satisfied with his pitching performance. But in eight of his 10 decisions, Hogan came away with a "W." By no means overpowering, Hogan was a veteran who knew how to pitch and who knew how to get big outs when he needed them.

"This year I probably had the most poise on the hill I've had in college," Hogan said. "Whenever we got down, I stayed confident."

Harvard did not win any of its first six games by more than three runs. But the big hits and pitches were always somehow there just when Walsh needed them.

At 6-0, the Harvard baseball team was sitting on top of the world. But just as Skywalker had to confront Vader in order to become a true Jedi, Harvard had to beat Princeton before it could truly take itself seriously.

The Tigers came into Cambridge for an April 13 doubleheader against the undefeated Crimson with a 6-15 record, including a 1-5 mark against Ivy League opponents. On paper, the matchup looked like an easy one for Harvard.

And for most of the opener, it was. Harvard took a 6-0 lead into the final inning. Jamieson was pitching a six-hit shutout through six and two-thirds innings and was one strike away from completing Harvard's seventh victory of the season.

Then, with a runner on second, Princeton's Justin Griffin rapped an infield single to third. Jamieson hit the next batter. The next hitter doubled to right.

By the time the half-inning was over, eight Tigers had crossed the plate and the Crimson had fallen victim to one of the worst collapses in team history.

Again, Harvard had shot itself in the foot against Princeton. Demoralized after the 8-6 loss, the Crimson fell 2-0 in the nightcap. The losing pitcher in the second game was, eerily, Schafer.

But unlike last season, the Crimson had a chance for redemption, and took it.

The turning point in the season might have been when we lost two to Princeton," Hogan said. "We blew the game, but that might have been the best thing that happened to us. After that we never took an out for granted all season."

Harvard played out the rest of its season like a team possessed. Yale came into town the next weekend sitting undefeated atop the Red Rolfe division standings. The Crimson swept the Elis that weekend behind solid pitching efforts by Hogan, sophomore James Kalyvas and Duffell, followed by a 16-run barrage to close out the series.

After an expected weekend sweep of Brown, Harvard faced a four-game weekend series with Dartmouth. The Big Green entered the series trailing the Crimson by two games. With Yale also two games behind, Harvard could clinch the division title with three wins.

Playing in the inaugural games for newly christened O'Donnell Field, the Crimson exploded for 18 runs in the first game, with Vankoski and Ralph each leaving the yard, to take an 18-3 victory. In the nightcap, Albers drove in the winning run with an infield single to give Harvard a 7-6 win and a share of the division title.

Ralph homered again the next afternoon in Hanover to help the Crimson to a 12-3 win over the Big Green. The division title was solely Harvard's.

Later in the week, Harvard took down No. 18 UMass, avenging the Minutemen's Beanpot victory earlier in the season. Once Princeton defeated Penn in an Ivy League championship play-in game, the stage was set just as it had been the year before--the Crimson would face the Tigers for the Ivy title.

Princeton entered the series with just a 10-10 record, but by then Harvard's players knew that sometimes in baseball, records just don't matter.

In fact Princeton taught that lesson again in the first game of the championship series, beating the Crimson 2-1 and handing Duffell his first loss of the year. Hogan, pitching in the second game of the best-of-three series, was faced with a must-win situation to avoid a repeat of last season.

This time, however, there would be no sweep by the Tigers. After Princeton jumped out to an early lead, Hogan turned in a gritty performance to top Princeton, 4-2.

"That was a big, big win," Albers said. "Right then, I think we knew that we were going to take the series."

The victory broke a string of five straight losses to Princeton. With the tiger, err monkey, off its back, the Crimson closed out the series in commanding fashion the following afternoon, winning 22-4 and forcing an NCAA Regional best-of-three play-in series with Army.

The Crimson disposed of the Cadets in three games, sandwiching a 6-5 loss in the second game between victories in the first and third games, 12-1 and 4-1. Jamieson, who also recorded the victory in the clincher over the Tigers, pitched a five-hit, complete-game gem in the rubber match to send Harvard to its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1984.

The news came out of Stillwater, Oklahoma the following Thursday afternoon: Harvard 7, UCLA 2. Hogan, pitching in what turned out to be his last start for the Crimson, scattered six singles over eight-plus innings for his eighth win of the season.

"I knew that UCLA wasn't respecting us and that I could key in on that," Hogan said. "Every hitter came up trying to hit a grand slam with no one on base."

Typically, every hitter in the Crimson lineup recorded a hit.

Harvard beat Stetson the next day 8-6, as Vankoski drove in three runs and Duffell kept the Crimson in the game over six and two-thirds innings for his seventh victory.

The win set up a matchup with Oklahoma State the following morning: a win, and Harvard would be one victory away from the College World Series. A loss and the Crimson would have to win that evening and then sweep a doubleheader the next day in order to take the region.

The final score was OSU 10, Harvard 7. The Cowboys jumped to an early 6-1 lead, then put the game away with three in the eighth. The Crimson mounted a four-run rally in the ninth and brought the tying run to the plate, but came up short.

That night, UCLA avenged its earlier loss with a 14-9 drubbing to end Harvard's Cinderella run.

"I don't think we played over our heads the entire season," Albers said. "We did what we thought we could do, which was win the Ivy League and make a statement in the tournament."

The twist of this story is that it need not end here. Harvard graduates five players: Albers, Hogan, reserve third baseman Mike Hochanadel, reserve catcher Craig Wilke and pitcher Bart Brush.

They will be difficult to replace, but a strong contingent of sophomore arms has another year of experience under its belt.

"We're still a young team," Albers said. "None of us are irreplaceable. [Younger players] can pull from experience at Oklahoma State the same way we pulled from experience losing in the Ivy League championship [last season]."

The starting staff, anchored by Duffell and Jamieson, also welcomes the return of a healthy Schafer. The sophomore southpaw, who was named to the All-Ivy first team last year, battled injuries throughout the season.

With the Ivy League Player of the Year returning, a full arsenal of young guns and a year of playoff experience under its belt, Harvard is indubitably the team to beat in 1998.CrimsonAshley S. MarynickSophomore PHOTO WOODFORK vs. Cornell, April 12, 1997