SPORTS BRIEF: Baseball America tabs Harvard as preseason Ivy baseball favorite

Harvard remains the team to beat in Ivy League baseball, according to Baseball America, which picked the Crimson to win the league title and an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament in its Jan. 29 college preview issue.

The magazine selected Brown, Dartmouth, and Yale to follow Harvard in the Red Rolfe Division, while ranking Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, and Penn in order in the Lou Gehrig Division.

The Crimson compiled the league’s top record (14-6) last season—a year in which it was also a preseason favorite—but fell to Princeton in the league’s best-of-three series that determined which squad received the NCAA berth. Harvard returns 22 letterwinners from last season, including junior Steffan Wilson, whom Baseball America named as the Ancient Eight’s preseason player of the year and top professional prospect. Wilson, who batted .331 with 17 doubles, six home runs, and 43 RBI’s in 2006, has received both honors the last two seasons.

Juniors Shawn Haviland and Matt Vance were chosen as members of the preseason all-conference team. Haviland was last season’s Ivy League Pitcher of the Year, and Vance batted .318 with 25 stolen bases while recovering from shoulder surgery.

The Crimson opens its 2007 season the weekend of March 10, when it will play four games in Clearwater, Fla. It will open its Ivy League season March 31 at Penn, and will return for its home opener on April 4 against Holy Cross.

—JULIE R.S. FOGARTY