Baseball Takes Three of Four From Brown

Though its run through the Ivy League slate hasn’t been the most successful, the Harvard baseball team is still fighting hard and winning games as the season winds down.

The young team is committed to having fun and play relatively loose, and taking three of four games on a trip to Murray Stadium in Providence, R.I. this past weekend certainly helped.

The Crimson split Saturday’s doubleheader with Brown before sweeping Sunday’s two games to improve to 16-20 on the season and 5-11 in conference play. The Bears (12-21, 5-11 Ivy League), meanwhile, have now lost 10 of their last 13 games and are tied with Harvard and Princeton for having the worst conference record.

“It was great to take the series win from Brown,” freshman relief pitcher Kieran Shaw said. “We definitely have to feed off this momentum in the midweek game. It’s also going to be a big weekend against Dartmouth, so we’re looking forward to it all.”

HARVARD 7, BROWN 6 (11 INNINGS)

The Crimson squandered a 6-2 lead heading into the bottom of the ninth, but Shaw stopped the bleeding after Brown tied it at 6-6, and sophomore outfielder Trent Bryan hit a go-ahead solo shot in the eleventh inning to give Harvard the series win.

“Trent really crushed that ball to left-center,” sophomore first baseman Patrick McColl said. “He was struggling a little earlier on in the weekend but then really found it…it was huge to get a big win like that for us.”

A 2-1 game in the Crimson’s favor turned into a higher-scoring affair as McColl hit his own three-run bomb in the eighth to give his team a 5-1 lead. Closing out the game, however, wasn’t so straightforward for the bullpen, as Brown’s managed to score four in the ninth. Sophomore starter Kevin Stone tossed eight innings of two-run ball to keep the Bears in check and left with a no-decision.

“Kevin gave us a great outing—unfortunately, I didn’t have a great first inning out there,” Shaw said. “But after that…I threw well and hit my spots. The last inning, I just got in a groove, and I always have my defense behind me making plays.”

Shaw struck out the first two batters in the bottom of the eleventh and induced a game-ending flyout to secure the win for Harvard.

HARVARD 4, BROWN 3

Sophomore righty Simon Rosenblum-Larson struck out a career high 11 batters in six innings of work and held Brown to just one earned run in the Crimson’s 4-3 win over the Bears in the Sunday opener. Eight of the first nine outs were strikeouts of Brown batsmen.

“[Simon] was really feeling his stuff early on,” McColl said. “They just couldn’t hit him.”

Senior captain Josh Ellis, sophomore outfielder Patrick Robinson, and sophomore outfielder John MacLean all had multi-hit games to pace Harvard’s offense, which put up 11 hits on the game.

Shaw pitched a scoreless final inning for his second save of the season.

The final frame wasn’t without some oddities, however—with Brown down 4-1, the home team made a bid for a comeback with three straight walks to open the inning. After a sac fly and a double brought home two runs to make it 4-3, an error turned into a double play after the Bears runners were thrown out from right field. The final two outs, despite the error in right field, thus ended the game.

BROWN 7, HARVARD 3

Freshman second baseman Quinn Hoffman went 3-for-4 and Robinson hit his Ivy League-leading eighth homer of the season, but the Crimson offense couldn’t muster up a comeback after Brown put up six runs in the third inning, and the visitors ultimately fell in the Saturday nightcap, 7-3.

Robinson took a 1-1 pitch over the left-center field wall for a two-run blast in the first inning. The Melbourne, Fla. native also upped his RBI count to 32 on the season and still has a batting average over .400.

Junior righty Noah Zavolas and freshman reliever Grant Stone split duties on the mound, each pitching four frames, but two Harvard errors led to Brown’s game-defining crooked number in the third inning. In addition to the charity outs, the Bears got four straight hits off Zavolas at one point, and the big damage came on Brown senior Josh Huntley’s two run homer.

HARVARD 3, BROWN 2

Junior righty Ian Miller regained his early-season form with a complete-game, seven-strikeout performance over seven innings to lead the Crimson to a 3-2 win over Brown in the series opener. Miller tossed 109 pitches, with 71 of them coming for strikes.

The team did its part to support its starter, pushing across three runs in the second inning to spot Miller an early 3-0 lead. Harvard also committed no errors in the field.

McColl got the offense jumpstarted in the second with a double to right center off Bears starter Christian Taugner, and MacLean followed with an RBI single to right. McColl ultimately went 6-for-14 with three runs scored on the weekend.

Fellow sophomore Ben Skinner and captain Ellis followed with RBI singles to keep the runners moving and extend Harvard’s lead to three. The Crimson offense was also helped by a wild pitch, two passed balls, and a walk in the inning.

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