A Tough Club

Harvard coach Loyal Park is wary of the combination of hitting and pitching that the Friars can throw at an opponent. "We've beaten them the last two years," Park said yesterday. "You have to wonder about the law of averages. They're a real good ball club, a veteran ball club. Their boys have been in this thing the last three years."

Few people know what to expect from New Hampshire. Only yesterday Park said that he knew little more about the Wildcats than the fact that they were in the tournament. Park said he was waiting for a scouting report on UNH, which he expected to arrive last night.

Mystery status notwithstanding, New Hampshire is, in the words of Wildcat coach Ted Conner, a team "about average in every respect, with no great strengths or real weaknesses." However, UNH can boast three outstanding hitters in Darryl Conte, Dave Bettencourt and Walter Benny, and Conner can call on a couple of solid pitchers in southpaw Bill Tufts and right-hander Buff Young.

Conte keys the New Hampshire attack and has outstanding power credentials. In 21 games he banged out seven home runs and amassed a whopping 32 RBIs. He also has four doubles and a triple to his credit and hit a torrid .373 during the regular season.

To complement the big bat of Conte, Conner has Bettencourt and Benny. Bettencourt boasts a .409 average with 14 RBIs while Benny has hit at a .353 clip with nine "ribbies."

Tufts is without question the ace of the Wildcat pitching staff with a 4-1 record and a 1.92 ERA. Behind him, Young has a 3-2 mark with 2.67 ERA.

Something Missing

"We just don't have the natural talent and ability that a Harvard or Providence has--at least not as much of it," Conner said yesterday. "We don't have pitchers who will throw no-hitters and we're not going to score 15 runs in a ballgame and win, 15-4. We're going to have to go out and play nine hard innings and not make any mistakes."

The key to the series for Harvard will be whether the Crimson pitchers, most notably Mike O'Malley and Don Driscoll, will be able to stifle the Providence firepower and shut off the long ball of UNH's Conte. Time and again down the EIBL stretch, Harvard's pitching staff came up with big performances, despite the plethora of doubleheaders during that stretch run.

Final Exam Headache

A more immediate headache for Park has been the fact that with final examinations in full swing, Crimson practice sessions have been somewhat haphazard. "We haven't had the whole team together since we won against Princeton," Park said yesterday. "Today I only have five players at practice. We have some guys who won't have practiced at all since the last ballgame."

So the pressure is on once again for the Crimson baseball team. And while lack of practice and exam-period blues may hurt Harvard's chances, the Crimson have been playing--and succeeding--with the odds stacked against them all season.

As UNH's Conner pointed out: "Harvard has had so many pressure games that they have had to win, that they have gotten used to pressure. That could be an advantage in a tournament like this."

And so the Cinderella story unfolds a little further. The coach is waiting.