Baseball Wins One, Drops Three Against Jacksonville

Following an undefeated start to the season, the Harvard baseball team traveled to Florida for Spring Break, where the team is scheduled to play 10 games in the span of nine days. First up on the team’s road trip was a stop at Sessions Stadium and a four-game set against RPI 53rd-ranked Jacksonville—an early-season assessment against a quality ASUN-conference team.

Despite splitting the first two games, the Crimson saw early slim leads slip away in both the next two matches and ultimately dropped three of four to the Dolphins (9-9). Quality Harvard pitching against strong Dolphin bats was tempered by silent offensive offerings in the last two games, developments that are both exciting and worrisome for the Crimson moving forward.

Harvard now sits at 5-3 and take on Bucknell and Massachusetts before playing four against a streaking South Florida team to close out Spring Break.

“The team did a good job of competing, for the most part,” said sophomore pitcher Kevin Stone, who started the Crimson’s Saturday morning victory. “It was a good test for us to get down here and play against some of the better competition in the country.”

JACKSONVILLE 5, HARVARD 3

The scoreboard after the top of the fourth inning of Sunday’s series-ending game provided a glimpse into a strange scenario: despite having zero hits on the board, Harvard held a 3-0 lead over Jacksonville.

A combination of walks, hit-by-pitches, and errors afforded the Crimson the early lead, but a subsequent shutdown effort out of the home bullpen propelled the Dolphins to a 5-3 comeback win.

Three Dolphins pitchers combined to no-hit Harvard until the seventh inning, when Crimson sophomore Ben Skinner broke it up with a single down the right field line. Jacksonville junior Matt Meyer pitched a solid 4.1 relief innings for starter Nathan Disch, who, despite giving up no hits, was pulled after just two outs in the first inning. Jacksonville went on to tally two in the fourth and two in the sixth, adding one more in the bottom of the seventh, to wrest the lead away from Harvard.

Junior Noah Zavolas got the loss despite striking out four and giving up just two earned runs over seven innings. Zavolas’ quality start was slightly marred by two Crimson errors behind him, helping three unearned Jacksonville runs cross the plate. In addition, Skinner’s single would prove to be Harvard’s only knock all game.

“With the exception of the Friday night game, our pitchers were really competitive and threw a lot of strikes, and that’s what we needed,” said senior catcher and captain Josh Ellis. “Unfortunately, our bats were a little silent in the last two games, and that’s where we got caught up.”

JACKSONVILLE 2, HARVARD 1 (8 INNINGS)

The tail end of Saturday’s double-header, a scheduled seven-inning affair, was forced into an extra eighth inning after Jacksonville erased a first-inning 1-0 deficit with an RBI groundout in the fifth. In the bottom of the eighth, with runners on first and second, Dolphins sophomore Angel Camacho hit a two-out walk-off RBI single, sinking the Crimson, 2-1.

Harvard junior righty Ian Miller took on an unfortunate loss after keeping the Crimson in the game all game long. Miller pitched a complete, 7.2 inning, two-earned-run game with three strikeouts, continuing to impress as a starter after his complete nine-inning game gem in his first start.

In the second inning, Harvard struck first after sophomore Trent Bryan singled home junior Matt Rothenberg. Bryan’s 2-for-3 day at the plate capped off a 4-for-7 Saturday, though he would be hitless on Friday and Sunday.

HARVARD 4, JACKSONVILLE 1

In the doubleheader opener, Stone and freshman righty Kieran Shaw helped the Crimson pull off a 4-1 win on Saturday morning to tie the series at 1-1. The pair of young pitchers combined to hold Jacksonville to just one run over nine innings of work, with Stone getting the win and Shaw the save.

“The MO for myself and Kieran was just to compete our butts off,” Stone said. “We tried to put our team, and keep our team, in a position to win that ballgame after we scored four runs to start the game.”

The solid appearances against a quality team are big for both pitchers. They’ll look to take the positive experience back up north as the season progresses.

Sophomore outfielders Patrick Robinson and John MacLean punched in an RBI apiece for Harvard, while Bryan went 2-for-4 at the dish with a ninth-inning insurance home run. Junior John Fallon also went 2-for-4 with two runs scored.

“It was great to get down there and size ourselves up against those guys,” Stone said. “I think it showed us that we can really play with anybody, taking a game from them and being competitive in those last two games.”

JACKSONVILLE 12, HARVARD 1

Jacksonville walked all over the Crimson in the series-opening Friday night game under the lights, as the home team pounded out 14 hits and scored in each of the first five frames to make the game 10-0 before Harvard even started batting its third time through.

“It’s always pretty humbling to go down to these schools,” Ellis said. “Unfortunately, we just weren’t ready to go. We just didn’t put things together Friday night.”

Sophomore righty Simon Rosenblum-Larson took the loss for the Crimson, being pulled in the fourth after giving up six earned runs. First baseman/pitcher Matt Hink and even Fallon, an infielder, made appearances on the mound, to save the rest of the bullpen arms during the one-sided affair.

Leadoff hitter Quinn Hoffman went 2-for-4, with two stolen bases during the game, though his performance would drop off with a subsequent 0-for-11 in the next three games.

“Our coach brought us together, and we rallied around that,” Ellis said. “[We knew] we could come together and put our best foot forward the next day.”

—Staff writer Bryan Hu can be reached at bryan.hu@thecrimson.com.