Baseball Drops Ivy League Opener at Columbia

In its first Ivy League contests of the season, the Harvard baseball team did not get off to a big start in the Big Apple.

The Crimson (3-18, 0-3 Ivy) dropped a pair of games on Saturday against Columbia (9-12, 2-0), the first by a score of 5-0 and the second, 3-2, on a walkoff single in the bottom of the ninth.

“The first game we didn’t play up to our potential, but I definitely think the second game we were in it all game,” freshman catcher DJ Link said. “We were down at one point, but we fought back very well…. We still have work to do and we’re going to keep working hard.”

COLUMBIA 3, HARVARD 2

The second game of the double header went down to the wire. Tied at two after six innings, both teams battled it out, scoreless, for the next two frames.

That changed in the bottom of the ninth. With two outs and men on second and third, Columbia sophomore Gus Craig entered as a pinch hitter. In his first at-bat of the day, Craig reached out and blooped a ball down the left field line to bring home the winning run.

“Ballgames aren’t won in the ninth inning; there were a lot of things we could have done early on,” senior pitcher Matt Doyle said. “The bloop single over the third baseman, no one could have caught it. He just threw his hands out there and got it.”

Doyle started game two for the Crimson and went seven innings, surrendering two runs off five hits. The senior utilized his diverse pitching arsenal, sporting a changeup and curveball in addition to his fastball, to keep the Lions hitters off balance.

Columbia pushed across a run in the third and fourth innings on two RBI singles to seize a 2-0 lead.

But Harvard bounced right back in the top of the fifth, scoring a run off a single from sophomore infielder Tanner Anderson.

The next inning, the Crimson mounted a two-out rally, and a single from sophomore outfielder Brandon Kregel plated sophomore infielder Mike Martin, who had just doubled.

But Harvard failed to push across any more runs in the inning, eventually stranding runners on second and third.

Anderson led the way offensively for the Crimson, posting three of the team’s eight hits and driving in a run.

“That was one of the first ballgames that we’ve been in in the ninth inning the last two weeks, other than the wins at Houston Baptist,” Doyle said. “It was good to get a taste of playing in a complete game. We left a few runners on, and made one or two bad pitches and they capitalized on it. We still have room to grow together.”

COLUMBIA 5, HARVARD 0

In a game with little offense, the Lions took advantage of timely hitting to coast to a 5-0 victory in both squads’ first Ivy League test of the year.

Harvard scattered four hits throughout the game, only one less than the total amassed by Columbia. But the difference was that the Lions brought their runners home when they got them on base.

Columbia sophomore Joey Falcone was largely responsible for such production, going two-for-three on the night with two runs and a two-run homer in the fifth that gave the Lions a commanding lead.

The home run followed a long fourth inning in which Columbia put three on the board. After loading the bases with no outs, two runs scored on a fielder’s choice coupled with a Harvard throwing error. A sacrifice fly a few batters later brought home one more run.

The Crimson had trouble against Lions starter David Speer, who went the distance in the seven-inning shutout. The lefty did not allow more than one hit in an inning, walked none, and struck out six.

“The first kid from Columbia, he had our number as a team,” Link said. “He had a lot of movement on his fastball; he was a lefty throwing his cut fastball. He had a lot of our guys rolling over his cut fastball because it had late movement on it. He threw us pretty well.”

Junior Sam Dodge pitched all six innings for Harvard and allowed three earned runs in what was the first Ancient Eight game for the ten freshmen on the roster.

“The Ivy League is where the games really start to matter, so it was a good experience,” Link said. “We got a good indication of what Ivy League baseball is like, and I feel like the whole preseason and spring break and all that prepared us pretty well for Ivy League play. We just have to keep playing baseball fundamentally.”

—Staff writer David Steinbach can be reached at dsteinbach@college.harvard.edu.