Baseball Takes Title with Dartmouth Split

HANOVER, N.H.—After three postponements over its last eight conference games, Harvard baseball finally got something it had expected from day one: a Red Rolfe Division title.

The Crimson (24-14, 15-5 Ivy) won sole possession of first place and a berth to this weekend’s Ivy Championship Series against Cornell by beating Dartmouth (13-20, 8-12 Ivy) yesterday in Hanover by a score of 10-6.

In a form befitting to the close of the Ivy stretch, however, victory was anything but painless.

HARVARD 10, DARTMOUTH 6

The Big Green’s Michael Madson plunked four batters in a tide-turning sixth inning as Harvard notched five runs to shatter a tense 3-3 deadlock. The entire batting order got at least one turn at the plate as the pitcher hit senior Ian Wallace, freshman Matt Vance, and sophomore Brendan Byrne in order to load the bases three separate times.

Junior Lance Salsgiver was hit in the helmet later on in the frame, finally earning Madson the hook.

“He was their Ivy a spot starter, their Javy Castellanos,” coach Joe Walsh said. “But suddenly, everything was up and in, up and in.”

That wildness—combined with two singles by juniors Zak Farkes and Josh Klimkeiwicz and two wild pitches—gave the Crimson a sizable lead it would refuse to relinquish.

“It definitely worked in our favor and shifted the momentum,” captain Schuyler Mann said. “The win is what we had always expected from our team since the season started.”

Klimkiewicz set the tone from the start by slugging his eighth home run in the top of the first, a bomb to the trees in left-centerfield. The shot, which tied Mann for the team lead, put an exclamation point on a resurgent season in which the junior was completely healthy for the first time in his college baseball career.

“He’s been huge,” Mann said. “Never count him out. He’s been in the three or four spot all season, and [pitchers] have been working him the hardest. He’s done a great job.”

Klimkiewicz’s classmate, Zak Farkes, continued a hot streak of his own as he went 3-5 with 3 RBI.

But it was Harvard’s phenomenal trio of freshmen, arguably, that made the lead permanently stand up.

Vance collected a bizarrely impressive stat line with four runs and three RBI on just one hit. That one knock of the game, incidentally, turned out to be his first collegiate home run—a drive to left on the first pitch he saw from Dartmouth rookie Kyle Zeis, his “best friend” and classmate at California’s Torrey Pines High School.

“Matt’s been getting on base for us, being a catalyst,” Mann said. “If we get some power out of him, we’ll be that more dangerous in the lineup.”

Shawn Haviland, meanwhile, was coach Joe Walsh’s choice to start the decisive game. Although he tired in the seventh and final inning, Haviland surrendered only three earned runs—along with three more unearned—to improve to 6-1 on the year.

“I actually thought about throwing in him the nine-inning game, the next game [of the series],” Walsh said. “But we were so banged up, I thought we better just suck it up and try to win this one game. We had to lay it all on the line, and Haviland came up big for us.”

Yet it may have been Steffan Wilson—the Crimson’s everyday third baseman and closer—who had the most interesting experience on the day. The freshman arrived roughly 30 minutes after the game started due to mandatory attendance in Expository Writing. After running into the dugout, he immediately took over in the field for classmate Taylor Meehan and later relieved Haviland to record the contest’s last out with a man on second.

DARTMOUTH 8, HARVARD 5

With the division crown in the bag—and although the Crimson lost 8-5—Joe Walsh used the last game of the regular season to have a little fun with his lineup card.

Second baseman Brendan Byrne took the field in left, while Matt Vance started at short for the second day in a row. Seniors Rob Wheeler and Jeff Friedman played first and center, respectively, as freshman Griff Jenkins and sophomore Rob Nelson both received long-awaited starts at second and third.

Friedman collected two hits and one run, bringing him to three hits and five at-bats and three scores on the day. Freshman Brad Unger started, allowing seven runs and just two earned while fanning five in 3 and 2/3 innings of work.

The Big Green’s Chris Carpenter and Nick Peay combined to hold Harvard to five runs.

“Our big concern,” Walsh said, “is getting our pitching back into shape. We’ve been getting hit a little bit, and pitching will be the name of the game this weekend.”

The Crimson will face Cornell in the ICS, a three-game series, starting this Saturday at noon. All games will be played at home at O’Donnell Field, thanks to the strength of Harvard’s record.

—Staff writer Pablo S. Torre can be reached at torre@fas.harvard.edu.