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Baseball Overcomes Rough First Game to Split With Penn

By Jamal K. Greene

The Harvard baseball team had a not-so-manic Monday yesterday, splitting a doubleheader against the Ivy League-leading Penn Quakers. Penn (18-12, 9-3 Ivy) won the first game convincingly 8-1, but Harvard (11-9, 5-3) bounced back with strong pitching and solid defense to take the nightcap, 5-3.

In the opener it seemed the Harvard players were thinking about the sections they were missing rather than the game. Penn doubled in a run in the first, tacked on three more in the second and never looked back.

Harvard's offense was barren, and the pitching and defense was highly suspect, as evidenced by four errors in seven innings. The only good to be taken from the first game was a solid three innings of work out of freshman Joshua Ramsey.

Imagine the scenario at the start of game two: Penn had just beaten Harvard by seven runs. In shutting out Harvard two days earlier, Columbia had muted an offense that had not been silent in 45 games. And in the first inning of that second game, Penn scored a pair of runs off junior Bart Brush, pitching in his first start of the season.

"When they put two runs up in the first inning, we could have packed it in," first-year coach Joe Walsh said. "After we lost that first game I knew we had our backs against the wall. But the kids responded real well."

What was important yesterday was not just that the team showed life, but that it made the big plays when the game was on the line.

The big plays started in the bottom of the first. Down two, freshman Hal Carey slapped a single into left to lead off the inning. Sophomore centerfielder Brian Ralph drew a walk and junior third baseman Mike Hochanadel pushed both runners up with a perfect sacrifice bunt down the first base line.

With runners on second and third, senior catcher Dennis Doble beat out a grounder to short for an infield single, driving in Carey. Junior first baseman Peter Albers followed with a sacrifice fly to right, and all of a sudden the game was tied without the benefit of even two Harvard hits outside of the infield.

In the second, Harvard seemed to start to take control of the game. Brush sent the Quakers down in order, striking out two, and the Crimson took its first lead of the day.

"I struggled at first because I haven't been starting this year," Brush said. "Once I got past the first inning I started to feel pretty good."

The offensive support didn't hurt either. In the bottom of the second, the Crimson players once again strutted their fundamentals in front of the Quakers.

Freshman Peter Woodfork led off the inning with an infield single off the glove of the diving second baseman, and captain Marc Levy hit a Texas-Leaguer into short right. Sophomore shortstop David Forst laid down the requisite sacrifice bunt and Harvard had runners in scoring position for Carey, who was 3-for-4 on the day.

Carey responded with a long single into the gap in right center, scoring Woodfork before Levy was gunned out at the plate.

Harvard would go on to keep its lead the rest of the day. The Crimson tacked on two runs in the fourth on a single by sophomore Brett Vankoski and a double to the wall in left-center by Carey.

Brush and the Harvard defense clawed their way out of several jams the rest of the game, most of which involved Penn shortstop Mark DeRosa, rumored as a potential Major League draft pick.

In the top of the fifth, DeRosa advanced to the bat with runners hugging first and second and two outs. Brush worked a quick 0-2 count before throwing a 55 footer that ended up at the screen behind the plate, pushing the runners to second and third. Fortunately for the Crimson, mighty DeRosa watched a curveball nip the outside corner for strike three.

"We thought we could tie him up on the outside part of the plate," Brush said. "When it really mattered, I think I hit some good spots."

Brush, who pitched all seven innings of the second game, found himself in an almost identical situation in the top of the seventh.

Up 5-3, the Crimson retired the first two Quakers on solid defensive plays by Hochanadel and Forst. But first baseman Mike Shannon and centerfielder Sean Turner poked singles through the infield and suddenly the tying run was up in the form of Mark DeRosa.

Once again the strategy was to pitch him outside. The righty short-stop flew out to right center and the game was over.

The division-leading Crimson will surely see similar situations as the season wears on. Whether it is ready not will determine how far this team goes.

"We've been in a lot of pressure spots already," Brush said. "We're a young team, we have a lot of freshmen. But it almost seems like we're so far into the season that they're not really even freshman anymore." Penn 8 Harvard 1

Penn 3 Harvard 5

Harvard, 5-3 at Soldiers Field R H E Penn 200 001 0 -- 3 8 2 Harvard 210 200 x -- 5 9 2

HR: Penn--M. Nagata. 2B: Penn--Turner; Harvard--Carey 2. E: Penn--DeRosa 2; Harvard--Hochanadel, Forst.

WP: Brush; LP: Fischer. PENN, 8-1 at Soldiers Field R H E Penn 130 004 0 -- 8 8 0 Harvard 000 001 x -- 1 4 4

2B: Penn--Carlon, Turner; Harvard--Hochanadel. E: Harvard--Wells 2, Ralph, Marcucci.