Northeastern Scores 10 Off Seven Crimson Pitchers

Look no further than the title of Loverboy’s ’80s hit “Working for the Weekend” to explain the Crimson game plan yesterday afternoon.

With the Ivy season over, the Harvard baseball team (24-14, 15-4 Ivy) sent seven pitchers to the mound and shuffled its lineup in a 10-3 loss to the Northeastern Huskies (18-18).

“Obviously, it sucks to lose, but it was a good [pitching] staff day,” junior Zak Farkes said of the Crimson’s final regular-season game. “We felt that it was important to get all of our pitchers into a live game with Cornell coming up.”

“We didn’t play a lot of our regulars,” added junior Frank Herrmann, who pinch-hit for Harvard in the ninth. “You want to win, but I think our minds were elsewhere, namely on the weekend.”

The Crimson had clinched the Red Rolfe trophy outright on Monday by defeating Dartmouth, 10-6. Harvard will vie with Cornell for the Ivy title and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament in the 2005 Ivy League Championship Series, which starts Saturday.

Today, though, sophomore Jake Bruton pitched three strong innings, striking out four and allowing one run on three hits to take the loss.

Northeastern starter Kris Dabrowiecki pitched six shutout innings, scattering three hits for his sixth win of the season and coach Neil NcPhee’s 500th career win.

Leading 1-0 in the top of the fourth, Huskies third baseman Tim Bush swung on the first pitch from senior Rob Wheeler and homered to left-center field. Northeastern immediately followed with a double and three consecutive walks, bringing the score to 3-0 when senior reliever Curtis Miller entered the game. Miller prevented any further damage by getting the next batter to pop up to third and inducing an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.

The Huskies tacked on three more runs in the eighth with two RBI doubles and a sacrifice fly off of junior Mike Dukovich.

In the bottom half of the inning, the Crimson started to show signs of life when senior Chris Mackey drew a one-out walk and Farkes barely beat out an infield single, extending his hitting streak to 10 games in the process.

Junior Josh Klimkiewicz then launched his ninth homer of the season on a deep blast to right. The drive gave him the Ivy League lead—moving him past captain Schuyler Mann—and cut the Northeastern lead to 6-3.

Harvard also benefited from the return of its everyday shortstop, junior Morgan Brown, who started and recorded two hitless at-bats before being replaced by freshman Taylor Meehan. Brown had been hospitalized with illness and missed the entire series against The Big Green after starting 33 straight games for the Crimson.

Still, Harvard could never overcome the deficit this three-run lead represented as Northeastern added four more runs in the top of the ninth on the strength of a two-run single and a two-run home run.

Freshman Matt Kramer, notably, notched his first career hit with a one-out single in the ninth for Harvard following a line-drive single from his classmate, Meehan. But fresh bats were not enough to spark another Crimson rally, and Harvard did not score again.

“We had a long two weekends at Dartmouth and Brown,” said Farkes, who is hitting .357 with five home runs and 25 RBI on the year. “But we aren’t burned out by any means. We’ll be ready for the weekend.”

The Crimson welcomes Cornell to O’Donnell Field for the best-of-three ICS this Saturday at noon.