Harvard Baseball Clinches Ivy Tournament Spot After Win Over Princeton, Yale Sweep of Dartmouth

After dropping all three games to Columbia last weekend — and falling to 8-12 in Ivy League play — Harvard baseball needed everything to go right to make the playoffs.

It did.

The Crimson (12–26, 9–12 Ivy) did its part by defeating Princeton 5–3 in the regular-season finale on May 7 behind strong pitching and timely hitting. Then, the team waited.

In a postgame interview with Harvard Athletics after the win, senior captain George Cooper said the team would watch the Yale-Dartmouth series together.

“We’ll stay ready. And, if the opportunity presents itself we’re very, very confident in ourselves,” Cooper said of a possible playoff berth.

A postseason berth seemed unlikely just last week, but a perfect storm unfolded in Hanover. Yale swept Dartmouth in their three-game series — 18-4, 19-0, 10-1— securing an Ivy League championship and clearing the path for Harvard to clinch the fourth and final spot in the Ivy League Tournament.

The dramatic turn of events capped a rollercoaster season for the Crimson, who now head into the Ivy League tournament with renewed momentum. Despite starting its season with 16 straight losses, Harvard showed resilience when it mattered the most.

The Crimson picked up wins against several Ivy League rivals, including a sweep of Brown, setting up a postseason opportunity that seemed all but lost after last weekend’s sweep by Columbia.

The Crimson will now face archrivals Yale, fresh off their victories in Hanover, in the first round of the Ivy League tournament. Earlier in the season, Harvard won the first game of the series 6-3 at home before dropping the next two games 1-19 and 2-9 in New Haven. Ivy League co-champions Columbia will face Penn in the other semifinal.

—Staff writer Rahem D. Hamid can be reached at rahem.hamid@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Praveen Kumar can be reached at praveen.kumar@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.

—Staff writer Saketh Sundar can be reached at saketh.sundar@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @saketh_sundar.