Baseball Advances to Beanpot Final

After freshman right-hander Grant Stone let go of his fifth pitch in Wednesday’s matinee with Massachusetts, it appeared as though the Harvard baseball team was picking up right where it left off from a weekend in which the Crimson dropped a pair of doubleheaders to Columbia and Penn. Stone’s offering to UMass senior second baseman Jon Avallone sailed over the left field fence at O’Donnell Field and gave the visitors a one-run edge. It was the fifth first inning run that Harvard had allowed in its last five games and bumped Stone’s season earned run average to 7.71.

“I think sometimes we need that little punch to get us going,” captain Josh Ellis said. “You’ve gotta score to win a baseball game anyway so it’s great to kind of get back on your toes but then also kind of get that fight in you early.”

However, the freshman settled in after the long ball, allowing just one walk and striking out four Minutemen in three innings of work. After Stone collected his second consecutive 1-2-3 frame, the Crimson offense answered the call. A five-run third inning propelled Harvard (11-12, 0-4 Ivy League) to a 7-3 win over UMass (6-14, 2-1 Atlantic Ten) on a brisk home opener that doubled as a Beanpot semifinal. With the win, the Crimson earned itself a date with Boston College in the Beanpot championship, which will be played on April 19 at Fenway Park. The Eagles topped Northeastern, 5-1, on Wednesday afternoon.

“I think our guys might’ve shown more today than we have throughout the year,” Harvard coach Bill Decker said. “We’ve come to the yard and played hard—we had a tough weekend and specifically didn’t play real well offensively—but I thought our guys came and played hard for one another today.”

The five-run third was a welcome addition for a Harvard offense that struggled to get timely hits over the weekend and managed just five runs over four games against the Lions and Quakers.

“It was huge,” Ellis said. “One thing that’s kind of been happening the last couple games is we’ve been getting hits with two outs, one hit, one hit, one hit, and we haven’t been able to put it together necessarily so it was nice to finally have a couple strung together and get some more support for our pitching staff.”

Senior shortstop Drew Reid got the hit party started with a one-out single. Captain Josh Ellis and sophomore center fielder Ben Skinner pushed the single streak to three, with Skinner’s one-bagger plating Reid. UMass starter Carter Knapek plunked freshman second baseman Quinn Hoffman to load the bases. Sophomore left fielder Trent Bryan found a gap to drive in two while sophomore first baseman put an exclamation point on the frame with a two-run triple.

With his team now holding a four-run advantage, freshman lefty JT Bernard was able to hold the Minutemen to one run over the fourth and fifth innings. Bernard’s changeup kept UMass hitters off-balance and the Douglasville, Ga., native struck out three while lowering his season earned run average to 2.08.

“He didn’t have a great feel for his breaking ball when he first went out there but he had command of his changeup,” Decker said. “His velocity is what it is but he’s that lefty you need to keep hitters off-balance, keep them guessing.”

The Minutemen got to within two runs after freshman right fielder Nolan Kessinger doubled to bring home senior designated hitter Mike Geannelis. After tip-toeing his way out of any additional damage in the sixth, senior right-hander Matt Hink shut down UMass in his second inning of work and his offense followed suit by removing any doubt about the final result.

In the home half of the seventh, Ellis picked up his second hit of the day, moved to second on a bunt by Skinner, and was driven home on a double by Hoffman. The freshman second baseman scored to push the Harvard lead to four on a Bryan sac fly. From there, it was freshman right-hander Hunter Bigge who slammed the door on the Minuteman offense. The Los Gatos, Calif., native retired five of the seven batters he faced and did not have a UMass player get past first base.

It was the second time that the Crimson has beaten the Minutemen this season as Harvard topped UMass, 8-2, in Port Charlotte, Fla., over spring break. The four arms that the Crimson relied on on Wednesday combined to pitch a grand total of zero innings for Decker last season. Stone, Bernard, and Bigge were all high school seniors at this point last year while Hink spent his first three years on campus as a first baseman.

“Awesome, no question,” Decker said of the pitching performance. “We were trying to get five out of [Stone and Bernard]. Matty got us through the seventh and Bigge threw the ball with conviction and that’s the guy we need on the back end to do something like that.”

Harvard’s bottom third of sophomore John MacLean, Reid, and Ellis combined for five of the Crimson’s nine hits on the afternoon. Harvard’s last appearance in the Beanpot final came in 2014, when it won the title. The last time that the Crimson played a championship at Fenway Park was in 2011.

“It’s awesome,” Ellis, the only member of the team from the Boston area, said of the opportunity to play in a Beanpot final for the first time. “I’m so excited, longtime Sox fan. Playing at the cathedral of Boston is going to be special. It’s been a few years since we’ve taken it, so it’s exciting.”

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