Gambles Don't Pay Off For Baseball

HOUSTON—The Harvard baseball team’s season ended where it began—in Houston’s Reckler Park, this time in the NCAA Regional Playoffs. But just as in the three-game series against Rice that opened the season back in March, the Crimson was unable to leave Texas with a win.

Harvard fell to Washington, 4-2, in the loser’s bracket of the NCAA Regionals on Saturday to end its season. A day earlier, the Crimson dropped its opener to national No. 4 seed Rice, 8-3. Harvard’s appearance in the double-elimination playoff had been its first since 1999, when the Crimson (20-26) also fell in two quick games to higher-seeded competition.

“The disappointing thing is that we had a lot of good seniors on this club,” Walsh said. “I really feel for those guys. We were really planning on playing Saturday night.”

Washington 4, Harvard 2

Many in Houston expected captain Ben Crockett to make his final start against the team he almost beat in March when Crockett struck out six in a close 2-1 loss to the Owls. But Harvard Coach Joe Walsh elected to throw sophomore Marc Hordon against Rice, leaving Crockett to dig the Crimson out of the loser’s bracket on Saturday.

If not for one bad inning, Crockett might have pulled it off. The senior turned in a typical gutsy outing—a complete-game, nine-strikeout performance that gave him 117 strikeouts for the season, a new Harvard record.

But in the fourth inning, the Huskies put together a two-out, four-run rally off Crockett for all the offense they would get—or need.

With the Crimson nursing a 1-0 lead, Washington’s Jay Garthwaite doubled to deep left. The next batter, John Otness tore another double to left-center that hit the wall between sophomore outfielders Hordon and Bryan Hale, tying the game.

The hit parade continued for Washington as Aaron Hathaway knocked an RBI single off the right-field wall to give the Huskies the lead.

“I was inconsistent with my curveball,” Crockett said. “My fastball was solid, and I had a pretty good change-up, but I was too inconsistent with my off-speed pitches. I wasn’t able to get ahead and I got rattled a little [in the fourth].”

Then, with the Crimson still an out away from ending the inning, sophomore right fielder Ian Wallace misjudged a hard-hit ball by Washington’s Greg Isaacson. Wallace took a few steps inward, then was forced to scramble back as the ball landed a few steps behind him and began to roll toward the wall. When the dust had settled, Isaacson had a triple and Washington led by two.

Huskies first baseman Taylor Johnson surprised the Crimson with a perfect bunt in the next at-bat. Crockett fielded the slow roller and threw to first, but first base umpire Randy Harvey ruled that Crockett’s toss pulled senior Josh San Salvador off the bag, scoring the fourth and final run.

“I thought we had a chance to win it all the way,” Walsh said. “In the fourth inning, we didn’t do a lot of things right.”

Crockett settled down after that rough inning, and Trey Hendricks’ first-pitch solo shot over the right field wall—his sixth dinger of the year—narrowed the deficit to two runs.

But Harvard was not able to do much else against Huskies junior Sean White (7-2), who scattered seven hits and struck out six in winning his sixth straight game—the first complete game of his career.

“Give Washington some credit,” Walsh said. “Their pitcher was outstanding. We couldn’t do enough against him.”

Crockett allowed ten hits, struck out nine and held the Huskies’ 3-4-5 batters hitless in 2 at-bats against him. He registered his 117th strikeout of the season in the ninth inning, setting a new single-season record formerly held by Ray Peters ’68.

“Crockett did a great job, not only today, but for the entire season, for his entire career,” Walsh said. “He’s the No. 1 pitcher on any ballclub, and he’s certainly our No. 1. He showed that today.”

Senior shortstop Mark Mager also secured a spot in the annals of Harvard baseball history, collecting his 208th career hit in the bottom of the ninth with a single to right, tying the mark set by Hal Carey ’99.

Wallace gave the Crimson an early lead with a single to left on a 1-2 count that scored Hale from third. Hale, a native of Seattle, had reached on a triple down the right field line off the team he had grown up following.

“It was definitely a little bit emotional,” Hale said. “We’re season-ticket holders for the basketball and football teams. I probably know 75 percent of the team.”

Washington went on to upset regional second seed Texas Tech in Saturday night’s game.

Rice 8, Harvard 3

Hordon’s start against Rice (48-11) was his first in over a month. The sophomore had injured his shoulder while sliding against Brown back in the middle of the Red Rolfe Division stretch run. When healthy, Hordon had enjoyed a superb year on the mound for the Crimson with a 1.61 ERA in four starts.

Hordon (2-3) showed signs of rust in the first inning, allowing two singles and two walks, balking on a full count and throwing a wild pitch past freshman catcher Schuyler Mann with the bases loaded that gave the Owls a 2-0 lead.

Hordon threw in the bullpen with assistant coach Gary Donovan during the top of the second, and whatever they worked on seemed to settle Hordon down. The righty retired eight of the next eleven batters to keep the Crimson in the game until the fifth, complementing his fastball and slider with an unorthodox slow curveball that kept the normally-explosive Rice batters guessing.

“He knew what he was doing,” Rice Coach Wayne Graham said of Hordon’s offspeed stuff, which at one point was clocked at 56 mph. “He was throwing some heatless curveballs that not many people can even get over the plate.”

But while Hordon’s pitching perplexed the usually hard-hitting Owls, Harvard’s bats were unable to close the gap. Rice’s Steven Herce held the Crimson hitless through 4.2 innings. Harvard didn’t even hit a ball out of the infield until Wallace’s fly to center in the fourth.

“I knew that the three-week layoff would be a problem,” Walsh said. “We just couldn’t lay off [Herce’s] breaking ball. We didn’t have any kind of flow or rhythm early in the game.”

Unlike Harvard, Rice had played as recently as May 26.

Herce (12-2) struck out eight before he began to unravel in the seventh. By that point, Rice had pushed six runs across the plate. Hordon gave up consecutive singles to start the fifth, setting the stage for an RBI groundout by WAC Player of the Year Vincent Sinisi that gave Rice a three run lead.

Hordon struggle to get another out, and two batters later pinch hitter Mike Lorsbach drove a curveball to deep right to give Rice a 4-0 lead, and a sac fly made that 5-0 moments later.

But just when it seemed that the Crimson had no chance of getting back into the game, the Harvard bats showed signs of life.

With the Crimson facing a 6-0 deficit, senior second baseman Faiz Shakir led off that inning with a sharp double down the right field line, and Mager followed that up with a single to give the Crimson first and second with nobody out.

Sophomore Trey Hendricks, a Houston native, drove in the Crimson’s first run with a hit to right. But Mann grounded into a double play and senior Josh San Salvador flied out to end the inning.

“That quieted the chaos,” Rice Coach Wayne Graham said. “I was definitely concerned.”

The chaos would resurface in the eighth.

With one out in the eighth inning and Harvard down 6-2, senior Andrew Brunswick worked a four-pitch, pinch-hit walk off Herce. Hale’s groundout moved Brunswick to second, and Wallace’s double brought him home.

Shakir, the next batter, got to first on a catcher’s interference call, and when Mager singled in another run to make the score 6-3, it suddenly appeared as if the Crimson might have a legitimate shot at coming back.

The situation seemed even rosier when Hendricks’ drive to shallow left appeared to load the bases with two outs for classmate Mickey Kropf.

But then Harvard Coach Joe Walsh gambled as he has several times this season, waving Shakir around from third as Rice’s Chris Kolkhorst gloved the two-hopper and threw to third baseman Hunter Brown. Brown bobbled the ball, but his throw still beat Shakir to the plate, ending the inning and the threat.

“The kid made a good play,” Walsh said.

Rice added some insurance when second baseman Eric Arnold took senior reliever Mike Dryden deep for a two-run homer in the eighth.