Baseball Beats New Hampshire

The Harvard baseball team evened its record at 6-6 yesterday with a 13-10 road victory over New Hampshire (9-10-1). The somewhat ugly, wind-affected, game takes the Crimson into an uncertain start to its Ivy League schedule on Friday.

Yesterday's game saw Harvard prescribe to a formula not normally conducive to victory. The Crimson fielders committed three errors, the pitchers gave up 13 hits and walked five, and the hitters struck out nine times, managing just six hits.

Fortunately for the Crimson, the Wildcats fared no better, walking 14 and giving up seven unearned runs on four errors. What it came down to in the end was which team got the bounces when it counted.

Harvard jumped out to an early lead off New Hampshire starter Peter Lopez. The first inning was marked by two clutch hits with runners in scoring position. Junior third-baseman Mike Hochanadel singled to right-center with the bases loaded, scoring two and sophomore center-fielder Brian Ralph hit a two-out single with a runner on third.

The second was more of the same, as sophomore shortstop David Forst sent the first pitch of the inning sailing into the stands to lead off.

"I was looking for a first-pitch fastball," he said. "I just turned on it and let the wind take it out."

Lopez was gone by the end of the second after giving up seven runs on four hits and walking five.

The early lead proved cursive, however, as the windy conditions led to folly in the field, and New Hampshire reliever Craig McLaughlin silenced the Harvard bats.

The Wildcats were able to take advantage of, among other things, two outfield fielding errors to claw their way back into it. They scored two in the bottom of the second, tacked on two more in the third, and scored three in the seventh to bring the score to 8-7 Harvard.

Meanwhile, Harvard was able to muster just one hit off McLaughlin in his five innings of middle relief.

The score remained 8-7 until the bottom if the eighth, when Harvard exploded for five runs, four unearned, capitalizing off wild pitching--New Hampshire walked the first four batters and threw a wild pitch in the inning--to put some needed insurance runs on the score-board.

"[New Hampshire pitcher Chris Wodanski] had trouble throwing strikes in the eighth," Forst said. "We sort of scraped around and manufactured five runs."

The Crimson survived a major scare in the ninth, yielding three runs in the bottom of the frame, before sophomore Frank Hogan retired Wildcat centerfielder Curt Connelly with the bases loaded to end the game.

Harvard's Ivy League season gets underway Friday as the Crimson travel to Cornell for a doubleheader against the Big Red. In a season that has already had its share of ups and downs, it is impossible to predict how Harvard will fare.

"We were lucky today. It was closer than it should have been," Forst said. "We've proven we can hit, field and pitch. We just have to pull them all together." Harvard  13 UNH  10