Baseball Comeback Falls Short Against Eagles

It was an old-fashioned National League-style ballgame yesterday afternoon at O'Donnell field--strong pitching, timely hitting and a tension-filled ending.

Unfortunately for the Harvard baseball team, it couldn't find that one final hit against Boston College, losing for the first time in six games, 4-3.

Down 4-2 going into the bottom of the ninth inning, the Harvard bats broke out of their slumber. Facing freshman closer Matt Duffey, right fielder and tri-captain Jeff Bridich hit a hard ground ball in between the first and second basemen for a single. Second baseman Faiz Shakir then singled into center. Sophomore shortstop Mark Mager followed with a perfect sacrifice bunt that put Shakir and Bridich in scoring position.

After Bridich scored on a sacrifice fly, first baseman John Franey hit an infield single. Third baseman Nick Carter, who had struck out twice earlier in the game, drew four straight balls from Duffey to load the bases. Harvard (13-13, 7-1 Ivy) had the Eagles (23-11, 5-7 Big East) right where it wanted them, with star catcher Brian Lentz up. The sophomore nailed a line drive, but the ball went straight into the glove of B.C. center fielder Jarett Mendoza to end the game.

The last inning, however, was not indicative of the way the Harvard bats had been most of the afternoon. Harvard had only five hits in the first eight innings while striking out ten times. The Crimson benefited from seven walks but also struck out four times with the bases loaded, twice to end innings.

The key to the Eagles' success was starting pitcher Paul Knapic. Despite a shaky start, including three straight walks in the first inning, Knapic effectively neutralized the Crimson lineup with a good combination of off-speed pitches and high heat. Working quickly from the windup, the righthander pitched smartly to avoid bad situations. He threw seven strong innings, striking out a career-high nine while giving up only five hits and one earned run to improve his record to 2-1.

Knapic capitalized on Harvard's tendency to swing at pitches up in the strike zone. Some of his strikeouts were three straight fastballs, each consecutive pitch higher than the last. He stayed high the whole game and the Crimson didn't even get the ball on the ground until the seventh inning. More importantly, he pitched his way out of jams.

"We had Knapic early," Harvard Coach Joe Walsh said. "We wanted him to pitch more from the stretch, but never got the opportunity. We haven't seen a guy with that much pop."

The Harvard pitching was good, too, but B.C. struck early. In the second inning, facing Crimson starter Ryan Tsujikawa, Eagles left fielder Neal McCarthy walked and scored after a Mendoza double and a fielder's choice. Boston College also scored on a mental defensive mistake in the third inning. Shortstop Mike Hubbard singled down the right field line. Tsujikawa threw a wild pitch, but Lentz was slow to the ball and Hubbard was able to get all the way to third. He then scored on a sacrifice fly to put B.C. up 2-0.

Harvard answered in the bottom half of the inning. Shakir hit a bloop single over Gambino's head and Mager singled. After Franey walked, Carter, who leads the teams in runs batted in, extended his hitting streak to seven games with an infield single. An error on the shortstop allowed another run to score and the Crimson tied up the game.

Things quieted down over the next several innings as a pitchers' duel ensued between Knapic and the Crimson's pitcher-by-committee. In the seventh, B.C. third baseman Eric Olson put reliever Dan Saken's low-and outside offering over the fence in right-center field to put the Eagles up for good. They added an insurance run in the eighth off a wild pitch.

As is common in a middle-of-the-week game, Harvard used six different pitchers (sometimes it used the same pitcher twice, as is allowed in college ball). Tsujikawa was pulled after two and a third innings, and his reliever, junior Mike Dryden, pitched an effective two more innings. Saken, who got the loss, gave up the final two runs. A combination of three other pitchers finished the game.

The inconsistency may have hurt the Crimson. Lentz and his pitchers sometimes miscommunicated, which led to three wild pitches, including one that scored a run.

The loss ended Harvard's five-game winning streak and extended the Eagles' to six games. Harvard showed improvement compared to last year's meeting with B.C., when the Eagles pounded out 28 runs over two games. The difference this time, as it is with most games in the Senior Circuit, was a failure to capitalize with men in scoring position.

"We had good at-bats in the middle of the lineup," Walsh said, "but nothing to show for it."

Harvard travels to New Haven this weekend for four games against Yale before returning home next Tuesday to face Northeastern.

Notes

The game marked the 100th anniversary of the first Harvard-B.C. baseball contest, when the Crimson edged out the Eagles 8-7 on April 7, 1900...B.C. is ranked No. 1 in the New England Division I poll as of April 10...The game featured several of the quirky rules of college baseball, including pitchers entering a game twice and the rule which states that a batter cannot run to first on a dropped third strike with a runner on first and less than two out. The latter situation caused confusion amongst the coaches and umpires for a few minutes.