Baseball Loses in First Round of Beanpot

­The Harvard baseball team dropped its sixth straight contest on Wednesday afternoon as clutch hitting and strong pitching propelled Northeastern to a 3-2 victory over the Crimson in a Beanpot semifinal in Brookline. The win gave the Huskies (14-12, 3-2 Colonial Athletic Association) a spot in the Beanpot championship game, to be played April 20.

Harvard was the home team because the game had originally been scheduled to be played at O’Donnell Field. The Crimson (7-15, 0-4 Ivy League) will settle for a spot in the consolation game for the second year in a row and will take on the loser of Boston College and Massachusetts, which will be played on April 13. The Eagles and Minutemen already met once earlier in the season in which BC defeated Massachusetts, 11-5.

“Today was a much better game for us than any of our games last weekend,” co-captain Matt Sanders said. “Obviously, we wanted to come out on the winning end of it, but I think they’re a very good team, they had some guys who hit pretty well and had a couple key hits in big situations.”

Freshman rightfielder Cam Walsh singled up the middle in the fifth inning to drive in sophomore shortstop Max Burt, the hero of last season’s matchup between the intrastate rivals, and gave Northeastern the lead for good.

Freshman pitcher Simon Rosenblum-Larson got the ball for Harvard after struggling to miss bats against Holy Cross last week. The Madison, Wis. native threw four innings and surrendered two runs, exiting the game with the score knotted at two apiece.

“Simon over the last few weeks has adopted the role of midweek starter,” Sanders said. “He’s showing improvement every week and I think that this was his best start. He improved from his last start which is great for us.”

The teams traded runs in the game’s first third. The Huskies got on the board first in the second inning as sophomore designated hitter Zach Perry and Walsh singled before being driven in by freshman first baseman Jake Farrell’s triple, one of just three extra base hits on the day for the two teams.

The Crimson got both runs back two at-bats later. Junior shortstop Drew Reid started the rally after reaching on an error by Northeastern third baseman Charlie McConnell. Freshman centerfielder Ben Skinner bunted his teammate over to second and senior second baseman Mitch Klug was hit by a pitch. Freshman leftfielder Trent Bryan drove in Reid and Bryan scored on a John Fallon single.

“It was pretty big after this past weekend,” senior pitcher T.J. Laurisch said. “We just went out there and played our game. It’s good to get some guys out there, get some confidence. Pitchers threw well, defense played pretty well, we saw some good pitchers. It was good to get out there and see we can compete with a lot of teams going into this weekend.”

Junior Kevin Rex spelled Rosenblum-Larson and took the loss for Harvard after giving up the Walsh single. The Crimson’s offense was held in check for the rest of the afternoon as Northeastern manager Mike Glavine trotted out a trio against which Harvard could only muster three hits.

Reid, who has been in a slump at the plate to start the season, was the only Harvard player to have more than one of the team’s six hits. The two singles raised the defensive whiz’s batting average to .231. It was the seventh time this season that the Crimson has scored two runs or fewer.

“I think we played defense really well,” Laurisch said. “The conditions weren’t exactly the best. We’re competing out there. There were a couple innings where a couple things happened out there and we didn’t score runs, but that’s baseball. I think on the whole it was a pretty good game. We just happened to be on the wrong end of it.”

Harvard’s bullpen held serve down the stretch but the offense could not answer the bell. Seniors Laurisch and Shaun Rubin, brightspots in the team’s otherwise forgettable weekend, conceded just two hits through the game’s final four innings. Rubin’s earned run average sits at a miniscule 1.35 for the season.

“You need guys like that to step up,” Sanders said. “It was great that it’s been two seniors. T.J.’s a guy who’s had success in the past and he’s starting to find that again. Shaun hasn’t pitched as much coming into this season, but I think he’s going to be a huge piece for us moving forward.”

—Staff writer Stephen J. Gleason can be reached at stephen.gleason@thecrimson.com