Baseball Recovers, Salvages Home Split

The Harvard baseball team demonstrated its resilience yesterday, bouncing back from a 12-0 loss in the first game of a doubleheader against Cornell to take the second game 3-1.

In the first game, the Crimson could do nothing right. But instead of packing it in for game two, Harvard gave a lesson in resolve. Junior Trey Hendricks pitched phenomenally while senior Brian Lentz and freshman second baseman Zak Farkes came up with the necessary clutch hits as the Crimson triumphed 3-1.

Harvard (8-13, 3-3 Ivy) split its third Ivy doubleheader of the year in three chances. The Crimson won the first game and lost the second at Penn and at Columbia on April 5 and 6, respectively.

“One of the hardest things in baseball is to sweep a doubleheader,” Farkes said. “It takes a total team effort.”

Harvard 3, Cornell 1

Before the weekend began, Harvard coach Joe Walsh was looking forward to this game. Instead of juggling his pitching lineup when Saturday’s doubleheader against Princeton was cancelled, Walsh made certain that his junior ace would match up against Chris Schutt, Cornell’s star pitcher.

In front of nearly 15 major league scouts who came to see Schutt, Hendricks outdueled the Big Red stopper, pitching eight full innings and allowing only one run on seven hits while striking out 11. Schutt, too, pitched very well, striking out 11 and not allowing a hit through six innings. However, in the seventh, the Crimson finally got to Schutt, whom Walsh described as “a big-time major league prospect.”

The Big Red (10-12, 3-5 Ivy) took the game’s first lead in the top of the seventh on Jon Finch’s two-out, two-strike double to left-center that drove in a run.

Cornell’s advantage, however, was short-lived.

Farkes led off the Harvard half of the inning with a fly ball to right field that got hung up in a strong wind and fell in for a double. Lentz followed with a hard-hit ball to second that passed the lunge of Big Red second baseman Seth Gordon. It was a rough stretch for Gordon, who struck out to the end the top half of the seventh, failing to drive in Finch from second. Farkes raced home from second to tie the game at one.

“That was a big hit up the middle by Lentz,” Walsh said.

Hendricks helped his own cause, singling to right on the very next pitch, sending Lentz to third. Schutt bared down and struck out sophomore Schuyler Mann for the inning’s first out, but hit freshman third baseman Josh Klimkiewicz to load the bases.

The next batter, sophomore shortstop Ian Wallace, hit a sharp grounder to Cornell’s Jim Jackson at third. Jackson immediately fired home for the force out, and catcher Matt Goodson rifled it to first for a potential double play. Wallace, however, was hustling down the line and disrupted the throw as it neared first baseman Michael Weiss. The ball tipped off Weiss’ glove and rolled into right field, allowing Hendricks to score the go-ahead run from second.

“Wallace hurried down the line and forced the first baseman to miss the throw,” Walsh said. “That was a big play in the game.”

The Crimson added an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth. With one out, freshman leadoff hitter and rightfielder Lance Salsgiver singled to right and advanced to second as the ball got by Cornell rightfielder Mike Martino. Farkes, hitting second, delivered again, knocking in Salsgiver with a sharp double to right-center.

“I was really trying to see the ball better in my late at-bats, shorting my swing and driving it the other way,” Farkes said. “I feel I’m taking a little bit from every game I play, trying to get better, especially late in the game.”

Closer and captain Barry Wahlberg came on in the ninth to record his second save of the season, ending the game on a nifty 4-6-3 double play sparked by a good pick-up and flip to short by Farkes.

Cornell 12, Harvard 0

Harvard’s pitching and defense struggled as much in the first game as they succeeded in the second.

The Crimson made five errors in the game as the infield muffed easy ground balls and extended innings for a Big Red team that came ready to play.

Cornell designated hitter Ned VanAllen hit for the cycle and stole a base, leading his team to a 6-0 lead after two innings.

Senior Matt Self, who pitched brilliantly in the second game at Columbia last Sunday, lasted just 1.1 innings yesterday after the Big Red pounded away on a fastball that stayed up in the strike zone, a fatal error for a ground-ball pitcher.

In the second inning, six consecutive Cornell hitters knocked base hits as the Big Red looked like the Big Red Machine of the 1970s. To add insult to injury, the Crimson made two errors in the inning as Walsh sat on the bench in disbelief.

“I’m shocked and disappointed with the way we played game one,” Walsh said. “Use any noun or verb you want—we were terrible.”

Self, too, was obviously displeased with the performance.

“It was a pretty big disappointment after last week,” Self said. “I didn’t really give the team a chance to win. I hoped to have similar control, but I was missing my spots and not keeping the fastball down.”

Senior Brendan Reed relieved Self in the second but failed to stop the Cornell onslaught.

In the top of the fourth, Reed retired the first two batters before allowing a triple to VanAllen. Schutt, who hit cleanup in the first game, then homered to left-center, giving the Big Red an 8-0 lead. Fifth hitter David Bredhoff made it back-to-back shots with a laser beam to left, putting an exclamation mark on an already gruesome Sunday home opener.

“It’s a weekend morning, blue skies, wonderful weather, first game in front of our home crowd and we come out and play like that,” Walsh said. “I was disappointed by all ends of the game.”

Cornell starter Dan Baysinger baffled the Crimson, allowing no runs on four hits in the seven-inning game.

“He’s a good pitcher,” Walsh said. “But we have to do a better job hitting the ball.”

Including the win in game two, Harvard has scored only four runs in its last 28 innings dating back to last Sunday’s 8-4, first-game win against Columbia.

The only bright spot for the Crimson was the pitching of sophomore Rob Wheeler, who replaced freshman Frank Herrmann in the top of sixth with Harvard already down 12-0. Wheeler shut Cornell down through 1.2 innings, mowing down every batter he faced.

“He was the only one of our pitchers who could keep the ball down,” Walsh said.

The Crimson plays a doubleheader at O’Donnell Field against Princeton today beginning at noon in a make-up of Saturday’s rainout. Walsh expects to make changes to his lineup from yesterday, bringing in new blood to try to jump start the offense. Sophomore Mike Morgalis and senior left-hander Kenon Ronz will start for the Crimson.

—Staff writer Alex M. Sherman can be reached at sherman@fas.harvard.edu