After a long courtship, the Harvard baseball team was finally wedded to mediocrity today at Northeastern when the Huskies downed the Crimson 5-4 and virtually knocked them out of the Greater Boston League race.

It was, to be sure, a shotgun, marriage. Harvard took a 3-0 lead in the third when, with the bases loaded, Joe O'Donnell walked to force in Gary Miller and Dan Hootstein followed with a single for two more runs.

But the Huskies quickly took two of the scores back in the bottom of the third against Crimson starter Jim McCandlish. George Neville increased the Harvard placed to 4-2 in, the sixth when he knocked in Hootstein with a single. Northeastern promptly countered with another run in the bottom of the inning, and Coach Norm Shepard replaced McCandlish with John Scott.

Scott, however, couldn't stay out of trouble. He loaded the bases in the seventh on two singles and Tom Bilodeau's error and then walked in a run to tie the score. Bilodeau rescued Scott from another jam in the eighth with a spectacular fielding play.

In the ninth, Scott walked the first two batters on four pitches each. An infield hit loaded the bases, and Dick Paster singled sharply up the middle to drive in the winning run.