Baseball Falters In Beanpot Opening Round

After a game on Sunday that totaled 39 runs, the Harvard baseball team was hard pressed to find offense at Northeastern’s Friedman Diamond on Wednesday night.

In the first round of the Beanpot, the Crimson (6-22, 3-5 Ivy) fell, 10-2, to the Huskies. Northeastern (20-13, 7-8 CAA)led from start to finish and scored nine of its ten runs in two big innings.

Harvard will take on Boston College in the tournament’s third-place game on April 29 at Fenway Park.

“They were hitting the ball, they were scoring runs, and they were a good team,” freshman catcher DJ Link said. “Their lineup was doing a good job putting the ball in play, and they were making things happen. In baseball, you put the ball in play, good things happen, and that’s what they were doing off us.”

The Huskies got the scoring started in the home half of the opening frame, pushing two runs across the plate before the Crimson could record an out. A two-out single brought home the third and final run of the inning to give Northeastern an early lead.

After a scoreless second, Harvard notched a run in the top of the third to cut the deficit to two. Link singled and was brought all the way home after the Huskies pitcher made an errant throw on a sacrifice bunt from junior outfielder Jeff Hajdin.

But the Crimson stranded Hajdin on third, as the next three hitters were unable to drive the junior home. Harvard left 11 men on base during the game.

“The bats weren’t really there today,” Link said. “Our two pitchers didn’t throw bad games; we just didn’t swing it and didn’t support them too well with the bats.”

Riding the momentum picked up by preventing additional damage in the third, Northeastern put the game firmly out of reach in the bottom half of the inning with a six-run rally.

Huskies junior Sean Lyons provided the first blow with an RBI triple to left field, and he scored two batters later on a wild pitch.

Freshman pitcher Shaun Rubin would replace senior starter Jordan Haviland, and he appeared to end the Northeastern threat by striking out infielder Will Dougherty with two outs. But the ball bounced away from Link, and a run crossed the plate as Dougherty reached first.

The next two batters took advantage of the mistake, and a bunt single followed by a two-RBI double down the line from junior Brad Burcroff pushed the score to 9-1.

The Huskies would push across their final run of the day in the bottom of the fifth, after an error in the Harvard infield allowed a run to score with one out.

Haviland struggled on the day, giving up six earned runs to take the loss.

Rubin was the only other player to take the mound for the Crimson, and he held Northeastern to one earned run while striking out seven batters in 5.1 innings, the longest outing of his career.

“I struggled a little bit early on, but as the game went on I was able to settle down,” Rubin said. “In the last couple innings I threw the ball pretty well.”

One bright spot for Harvard came in the top of the eighth, when sophomore outfielder Brandon Kregel stepped to the plate and smacked a line drive over the left field fence, past the Crimson bullpen for his second hit of the day. The solo shot was Kregel’s second on the year, a team best.

After an explosion of early offense, with a total of ten runs scored in the first three innings, both teams combined for only two tallies in the remaining six innings.

Harvard had trouble figuring out the Huskies pitching throughout the game. Northeastern starter James Mulry went seven innings, allowed one run (zero earned), and struck out eight.

But some Crimson batters were still able to post solid days at the plate. Link, the reigning Ivy League Freshman of the Week, continued his hot hitting by going 2-for-3 while scoring a run.

“It was definitely a great honor,” Link said. “I wasn’t really thinking about it as I was playing. If you have a good weekend it’s definitely nice to get rewarded for what you’re doing, but basically I don’t get too high or too low. I’m not going to let it affect the way I play.”

In addition to Kregel, freshman third baseman Mitch Klug and junior shortstop Carlton Bailey each notched two hits. But those performances would not be enough to pull Harvard back into the game.

“We struggled a bit out of the gates, and we got down early,” Rubin said. “In games prior to this we were able to come back from big deficits, but today we just couldn’t pull it off.”

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