Harvard Opens Season With Trio of Battles Versus Gators

The Harvard baseball team got just what it wanted in Florida—three games’ worth of experience against one of the nation’s very best teams.

The Crimson brought home far less in terms of practical results. On their season-opening road trip, the defending Ivy League champions suffered a series sweep against No. 15 Florida in Gainesville, 12-6, 10-2, and 17-6.

For Harvard (0-3), which started its season a full 22 games into Florida’s 58-game regular-season schedule, it was nice just to get some fresh air. The Crimson had practiced almost exclusively indoors at the Palmer-Dixon tennis courts for more than a month.

“Our grass was yellow,” said sophomore Matt Vance of a workout in the 30-degree cold last week. “The dirt was like playing in a sandbox. [This weekend] we were getting sunburned, but we were all loving it.”

The Gators once again played without 2005 Southeastern Conference (SEC) Player of the Year Matt LaPorta, a slugger who has missed time since straining an oblique muscle in February.

The sputtering Florida lineup, which had been partly responsible for the team’s freefall from No. 1 in the Baseball America national rankings last month, flexed its muscles against the Crimson’s pitching, rapping out 38 hits and drawing 24 walks over the three games.

“They’re a well-coached team,” Vance said. “When we gave them baserunners, they knew what to do with them.”

Harvard’s most effective mound performance during the weekend belonged to freshman Adam Cole, who started the season’s first game on Friday. The rookie from Sudbury, Mass. made good on the trust shown by the coaching staff, allowing just two runs until he was bumped during a two-run Florida sixth.

He yielded just two hits and three walks overall—an “amazing” performance for a first-year player, according to captain Morgan Brown.

“He showed a lot of poise,” Brown said. “I’m not sure if his stuff was really there [on Friday]. He has a very good pitcher’s makeup. He didn’t get flustered.”

Senior Lance Salsgiver led a solid Crimson attack with five hits and two walks in twelve plate appearances. Brown and senior Josh Klimkiewicz hit the sole Crimson home runs of the weekend in Friday’s loss.

The next stop on Harvard’s annual whirlwind March tour is Old Westbury, N.Y., where the team will play the New York Institute of Technology. The Crimson won the only game between the two squads in 2005.

FLORIDA 17, HARVARD 6

For three innings yesterday, Harvard hung tough with one of the best clubs in the SEC. Then it relived the nightmare of Friday’s mound collapse.

Flame-throwing senior Javier Castellanos started for the Crimson against Florida’s Kris Gawriluk. Both hurlers struggled.

“He had some control problems,” said Brown of Castellanos, who walked four batters and allowed seven earned runs in three and two-thirds innings. “But he always pitches well down the stretch. I’m not worried about him.”

Relievers Matt Brunnig and Mike Dukovich, both seniors, had similar troubles, yielding a flurry of Florida hits—18 in all. The Gators won, 17-6, in a marathon.

Harvard made the return trip to Boston after the game.

“We’re happy we got out there,” said junior second baseman Brendan Byrne, who went 1-for-3 with a run scored. “We were happy to get outside, play some good competition?to play baseball. But we’re not happy about the end result.”

FLORIDA 10, HARVARD 2

In a pairing of aces, Florida starter Bryan Augenstein got the best of Harvard right-hander Shawn Haviland in a 10-2 home victory. The Gators star conceded two runs in eight innings and in the process allowed his earned run average to rise to a microscopic 1.37.

As on Friday, the Florida bats got the job done with a high proportion—11 out of 13 hits total—of singles and plenty of walks. Haviland allowed five earned runs on six hits in four and one-third innings.

Gators second baseman Matt Gaski went 2-for-2 with two RBIs.

Salsgiver paced the Crimson with a 2-for-4 day at the plate.

FLORIDA 12, HARVARD 6

For six-and-a-half innings on Friday, Harvard went tit for tat with Florida. Cole worked into the sixth inning of his standout collegiate debut, allowing four runs, all earned, and two hits.

The Gators took a 4-3 lead against submarining junior reliever Jason Brown in the sixth, and the Crimson went down in the seventh without scoring a run.

Then, things got ugly.

Brown recorded the first two outs of the bottom of the seventh, and Coach Joe Walsh called on Dukovich to finish the job with a lone runner, Florida centerfielder Chris Woods, on third.

Woods scored on a wild pitch. Dukovich proceeded to walk three consecutive batters without recording an out.

Seven Florida batters, two Harvard pitchers, three hits, and three walks later, Florida’s Adam Davis flew out to end the inning. The score was 11-3.

“We thought we were right in there,” Salsgiver said. “It was kind of a big letdown. But that’ll happen in baseball.”

Harvard’s nightmarish seventh inning overshadowed a quality performance by its high-powered lineup. The top five batters in the order went a combined 9-for-20 with two home runs and five RBIs.

Brown finished with a three-for-five day at the plate and a two-run homer to left centerfield in the third inning—“longer,” said Vance, “than I’ve ever seen him hit one.”

The Crimson captain had hit just one home run in his Harvard career before Friday.

Klimkiewicz also hit “a moonshot,” Vance said—the 19th of his career.

—Staff writer Alex McPhillips can be reached at rmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.