With half of its scheduled number of games behind it, the University baseball team has clashed with a few of its strongest opponents, suffering defeat at the hands of college nines for the first time this season. On Wednesday, May 9, one of the strongest Holy Cross aggregations to oppose the Crimson in recent years broke Harvard's string of victories, winning by an 8 to 5 count. Yesterday afternoon, the Main Liners from Villanova shut out the Crimson by an 8 to 0 score.
The increasing strength of the opposing hurlers, especially of those from Holy Cross, Michigan, and New Hampshire State, has lowered the Harvard sluggers' batting average to the .329 mark. This is a decrease of 16 points in the last six contests.
W. S. Hardie '30 has made a tremendous gain during the past few contests to raise his batting average from .385 to .409, to take the lead from Captain H. W. Burns '28. Hardie, by virtue of a triple in the seventh inning of the encounter with the Wolverines, increased his total of three-baggers to six, still holding the lead in that department. His triple, scoring W. W. Lord '28 broke the 5 to 5 deadlock and started his team on the road to victory. Burns, who took the batting honors from John Prior 29 after the first few games of the season, has dropped to second place, his average being .393, a drop of 6 points in the last six clashes.
G. E. Donaghy '29 is holding down third place in the batting order with an average of .383. In the Bowdoin. New Hampshire State, and Michigan games, he cracked out doubles to raise his total to five, heading J. P. Chase '28 by one. He is also tied with Lord in the race for home run honors, both players having three to their credit. In the Dartmouth and Middlebury games, Lord had a field day at bat, smashing out three circuit clouts and an equal number of doubles. His average is now .333.
On the pitching staff, J. N. Barbee '28 has added Bowdoin, Michigan, and Dartmouth to his list of victims, but suffered his first setback of the season when the Crusaders drove him from the mound after two and one-third innings of service. F. B. Cutts '28 hurled successfully against the Wildcats, allowing only six scattered hits; he relieved Barbee in the encounter with the Purple performing creditably on a cold day.
In the base stealing department, Burns still heads his teammates with 11 to his credit.
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