Crimson Batmen Crush MIT

The Crimson batmen convincingly routed cross-town rival MIT yesterday in Harvard's home opener, derailing the Engineers, 14-1.

The Harvard nine handed MIT its second loss against five wins and upped the Crimson's record to a sterling 16-1. The win was Mike O'Malley's third with no losses and the defeat was credited to MIT ace Dave Yauch, who now sports a 2-1 record.

Left fielder Hal Smith and second baseman Ric LaCivita lead the Crimson parade of batters. The two pounded out five hits and three RBIs between them, as the batmen collected 13 hits in all.

Smith led off the Harvard half of the second inning with a 400-foot wind-aided home run to left center field. LaCivita also took advantage of the steady 15 mph breeze coming from directly behind home plate as he stroked a triple to the right center field fence.

Ground Rule Double

MIT scored its only run of the afternoon in the third inning. Engineer pitcher Yauch, who looked much better facing pitches than throwing them, got one of his two hits of the game in the third inning when he rifled an O'Malley pitch over the fence on one hop for a ground rule double. Shortstop Mike Dziekan and third baseman Dave Tirrell then singled to fill the bases.

In a nifty double play, Harvard catcher Rich Bridich forced Yauch at the plate and then fired the ball to first to nab Steve Reber. Dziekan scored, however, on a wild pitch to the next batter Dick Charpie. Pitcher Yauch accounted for two of MIT's four hits of the afternoon.

The big inning for Harvard came in the fifth as the batmen crossed pay dirt seven times on the strength of a five-hit Crimson barrage and three Engineer miscues. Kevin Hampe led off the inning with a walk and then advanced to second on Leigh Hogan's single. The two runners were brought in on Dave St. Pierre's towering double.

Smith and LaCivita singled and gained second and third on an error. St. Pierre scored on the play. The Crimson kept up the onslaught as four more Harvard batmen gained first base and two of them scored.

Senior Smith put yesterday's rout of MIT in perspective when he said, "It just happened that they just had an off day and we had a great one. Besides, it doesn't really matter, you know. It's nice to win these GBL games, but the Eastern League--those are the games we really want.