SPLIT DECISION: Baseball Tied With Bears After Dropping Potential Clincher

HANOVER, N.H.—Entering the final weekend of the regular season, only Brown stood in the path of the Harvard baseball team’s journey to the Ivy League championship series.

Today, the weekend is over and nothing has changed.

Harvard split a home-and-home doubleheader against Dartmouth this weekend, forcing a one-game playoff with Brown that will determine the winner of the Red Rolfe Division. Both Harvard and Brown are 13-7 in the Ivy League. The winner of Wednesday’s playoff will play Princeton in a best-of-three series this weekend.

“We’ll be ready for Brown on Wednesday,” Harvard coach Joe Walsh said. “It’s a shame we couldn’t wrap it up this weekend, but we have another ballgame to play that we can win.”

Harvard began the weekend with a one-game lead in the Ivy League over Brown. Brown won three of four games against Yale in back-to-back doubleheaders on Friday and Saturday, placing Harvard in a position to win the Red Rolfe Division with two victories at Dartmouth on Sunday. Harvard won Game One, clinching at least a tie, but could not get the sweep, falling 4-3 in game two.

Dartmouth 4, Harvard 3

With the Red Rolfe Championship in the Crimson’s reach, Dartmouth freshman closer Nick Peay shut the door in the eighth and ninth innings, ruining Harvard’s hopes of winning the division outright this weekend.

Harvard jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the second inning. Senior Javy Lopez led off the inning with a base hit to center and scored on senior Josh San Salvador’s 380-foot double to left-center. Senior Chaney Sheffield drove in San Salvador with a sharp one-out single to left.

Dartmouth responded with three runs off of Harvard’s Game Two starter, sophomore Trey Hendricks, in the bottom of the third.

Dartmouth sophomore Cooper Chapin drove in senior Matt Klentak with an RBI single to center to score the Big Green’s first run of the game. Chapin and junior Jason DaCosta scored two batters later when clean-up hitter Mike Miluesnic roped a two-run double to left-center, giving the Big Green the lead.

“We have a lot of confidence in Trey,” Walsh said. “I thought he pitched well. He’s a legitimate weekend starter, but we didn’t help him with the bats.”

Dartmouth stretched the margin to two runs in the bottom of the fifth and took the 4-2 lead into the seventh when Harvard got one back.

Senior second baseman Faiz Shakir’s single scored Sheffield to cut the lead to one. Harvard’s momentum continued in the bottom half of the seventh, when junior Kenon Ronz got out of a bases-loaded jam, striking out Josh Cushman to end the inning.

In the eighth, senior third baseman Nick Carter crushed a one-out double to right-center, putting the tying run in scoring position. For a brief moment, it looked as though Harvard would tie the game when San Salvador ripped a line drive down the left field line. Unfortunately for the Crimson, Dartmouth’s third-baseman Eddie Lucas was in perfect position to catch the liner, allowing Dartmouth to get out of the inning unscathed.

In the ninth, Peay struck out freshman pinch hitter Schuyler Mann and Sheffield to begin the inning. Down to its last out, the Crimson would not go away without a fight. Freshman Ian Wallace doubled to center, giving Shakir a chance to tie the game with a single.

Shakir bounced a ball just past the first base bag for a near double but solid Dartmouth defense prevailed again. Miluesnic stabbed his glove to his left and came up with the ball cleanly. He flipped the ball to Peay covering first for the final out of the game.

“We haven’t gotten any breaks all year,” Walsh said. “I thought San Salvador’s hit was going to drive in Nick and then Shakir didn’t get a friendly bounce to end the game. It could have been a different result...but that’s ok. We’ve been playing good, controlled baseball.”

HARVARD 3, DARTMOUTH 2

Harvard rode the arm of starter Sheffield for five innings and got solid relief performances from Ronz and junior Barry Wahlberg to clinch a share of the Red Rolfe crown with Brown.

The Crimson took a 1-0 lead on the first pitch of the game, when senior Mark Mager jumped on a fastball and drove it over the left-field wall for a leadoff home run.

Dartmouth responded with two in the fourth to take the lead. With the bases loaded and no outs, Sheffield got Lucas to ground into a bases-loaded double-play, scoring Chapin and sending sophomore Scott Shirell to third. One pitch later, Shirell scored when Sheffield’s pitch got by sophomore catcher Mickey Kropf.

The Big Green, however, would not hold onto the lead for long. San Salvador cracked a 400-foot double to deep left-center, a shot that would have been well over the fence at Harvard’s O’Donnell Field. Sophomore Bryan Hale followed with a bloop double to left field, moving San Salvador to third with no outs. Mager lined a single to left to tie the game at 2-2, moving Hale to third. A Shakir sacrifice fly gave Harvard a 3-2 lead that would not be relinquished.

Dartmouth threatened in the bottom of the sixth inning, putting runners on first and second with nobody out. Walsh called upon his southpaw Ronz to get his team out of a jam with a left-handed batter at the plate. Ronz got Miluesnic to pop out and left the game immediately afterward for Wahlberg.

The junior closer walked one with two outs to load the bases but struck out DaCosta with the game on the line to silence the Big Green bats. Wahlberg worked a perfect seventh to secure the Harvard win.

HARVARD 5, DARTMOUTH 1

It was typical Ben Crockett in Game Two of Saturday’s doubleheader at O’Donnell Field in Cambridge. The senior right-hander pitched a complete game, striking out 13 Dartmouth hitters en route to victory.

Harvard scored three runs in the first inning and would not look back. Carter singled to left with the bases loaded and one out, driving in Wallace and Shakir. Mager added a run, stealing home when Carter bolted for second base on a designed double steal. Mager waited for the throw to second and dashed for home, just barely avoiding the tag on the return throw to the plate from Dartmouth shortstop Matt Klentak.

The Crimson added two more runs in the fifth on a two-run double by Mann.

The story, however, was Crockett. Last year, Crockett pitched a no-hitter against Dartmouth to end the regular season. This year, in his last regular season game, Crockett was almost as good. He dazzled from start to finish, shutting out the Big Green for eight innings and allowing only six hits, all singles.

“We had our ace on the hill and the team plays with a lot of confidence when he’s out there,” Walsh said. “We can afford to make an offensive mistake here and there when Ben’s pitching because he keeps us in every game. All we need to do when he’s out there is execute a few times and add a clutch hit or two.”

DARTMOUTH 25, HARVARD 1

In a record-setting performance, the Big Green scored the most runs ever by a Harvard opponent, shelling the Crimson’s pitching for 25 runs in only seven innings. Dartmouth scored in every inning, including seven runs in the third and nine more in the seventh. Harvard senior Justin Nyweide left the game after only 2.1 innings, allowing six hits and getting little help from his defense.

Dartmouth’s Shirrell put himself in the record books, hitting three home runs—two of which were grand slams—and driving in an Ivy League-record 14 runs.

The 14 RBI are the second most in NCAA history. Marshall McDougall holds the record, recording 16 for Florida State when he blasted six home runs in a game on May 9, 1999.

Shirell came up with the bases loaded four times in the game. After striking out in his first at-bat, he hit grand slams in his next two trips to the plate.

He nearly took Harvard junior pitcher Madhu Satyanarayana’s head off with an RBI single in his fourth at-bat, Shirell blasted a two-run home run to deep center-field in the sixth inning for his 11th RBI of the day. The sophomore, who won the Ivy League Rookie of the Year award last season, was hit by a pitch in his sixth trip to the plate with the bases loaded in the seventh.

Shirell had one more chance to add to his RBI total when the Big Green batted around in the inning and the sophomore delivered with two-out, two-run double to right-center.

“That’s certainly the best game I’ve ever played,” Shirell said. “But I have to give the credit to my teammates. They were on base when I came to the plate. That’s the only way you can get 14 RBI in a game, if your teammates get on. I was just in the right situations at the right times.”

The game was actually tied at 1-1 at the end of the first inning before Dartmouth scored 24 unanswered runs.

Dartmouth 4, Harvard 3

at Red Rolfe Field, Hanover, NH

Harvard (17-22, 13-7) 020 000 100 — 3 9 2

Dartmouth (21-20, 9-11) 003 010 00x — 4 11 0

2B: H—Wallace, Carter, San Salvador, Sheffield. D—DaCosta, Shirrell, Mileusnic 2, Lucas. SB: H—Shakir, Sheffield. D—Zurhellan. Pitchers: H—Hendricks L, 1-3 (5.0 IP, 4 ER, 7 K), Dryden (1.2 IP, 0 ER, 1 K), Ronz (1.0 IP, 0 ER, 1 K), Wahlberg (0.1 IP, 0 ER, 0 K). D—Fey W, 3-3 (5.0 IP, 2 ER, 5 K), Brown (1.2 IP, 1 ER, 1 K), Peay S, 5 (2.1 IP, 0 ER, 3 K). Attendance: 300

Harvard 3, Dartmouth 2

at Red Rolfe Field, Hanover, NH

Harvard (17-22, 13-6) 100 020 0 — 3 9 3

Dartmouth (20-20, 8-11) 000 200 0 — 2 6 0

2B: H—San Salvador, Hale. HR: H—Mager. SB: H—Mager. D—DaCosta, Cushman. CS: H—Mager. Pitchers: H—Sheffield W, 2-1 (5.0 IP, 1 ER, 2 K), Ronz (0.1, 0 ER, 0 K), Wahlberg (1.2 IP, 0 ER, 1 K). D—Dowling L, 3-4 (6.2 IP, 3 ER, 5 K), Peay (0.1 IP, 0 ER, 0 K). Attendance: 400

Harvard 5, Dartmouth 1

at O’Donnell Field, Allston, MA

Dartmouth (20-19, 8-10) 000 000 001 — 1 6 2

Harvard (16-22, 12-6) 300 020 00x — 5 8 0

2B: H—Wallace, Mann, Sheffield. D—Mileusnic. Pitchers: H—Crockett W, 5-3 (9.0 IP, 1 ER, 13 K). D—Velosky L, 3-6 (8.0 IP, 2 ER, 8 K). Attendance: 418

Dartmouth 25, Harvard 1

at O’Donnell Field, Allston, MA

Dartmouth (20-18, 8-9) 147 112 9 — 25 23 2

Harvard (15-22, 11-6) 100 000 0 — 1 3 5

2B: H—Mager. D—Shirrell, Speights. 3B: D—Lucas. HR: D—Shirrell 3. Pitchers: H—Nyweide L, 4-3 (2.1 IP, 5 ER, 4 K), Saty (1.1, 4 ER, 3 K), Solimine (1.1 IP, 2 ER, 0 K), Wheeler (2.0 IP, 2 ER, 1 K). D—Grant W, 2-0 (7.0 IP, 1 ER, 1 K). Attendance: 4344