The number 13 proved as unlucky as ever for nine Crimson freshmen who donned hat and glove to challenge a fiesty Northeastern squad yesterday afternoon.

Despite a heroic seven-run rally in the final two innings of the game, Harvard failed to overcome a debilitating lead that Northeastern quickly carved out of Crimson errors and some pitches that were served up on silver if not golden platters.

The final tally sheet showed the Crimson batmen falling one run short as they dropped the game, 13-12.

To say the game started off poorly for the Crimson squad would be the understatement of the season. If they had played the national anthem before the game, the band wouldn't have gotten past the first few bars before Northeastern had a man hugging each base. And the bombs were just bursting when Scott Medowsky hit a grand slam that put Harvard in the hold by four.

The Crimson responded faintly with one run in the bottom of the first and put two more across the plate in the second inning. Harvard and Northeastern kept abreast through the third inning, scoring one run apiece.

It was somewhere between the fourth inning, when Northeastern scored four runs, and the sixth inning, when another four Northeastern batmen came home, that Harvard quit keeping track of the game statistics in the scorebook. Most estimates of Crimson errors, however, were in the eight to nine range.

Talk on the bench shifted from the massacre on the field to an appraisal of the accomplishments of various tobacco chewers on the team: Bill Scheft was pronounced the veteran star, but all agreed that Dave Crowley would be in there for rookie chewer of the year, since "he's gone the distance."

For a while it looked as though the eight inning would produce a much needed comeback but only two runs scored, and the inning ended with three men left on base and the Crimson trailing, 13-7.

It was in the bottom of the ninth inning that the cavalry arrived.

Steve Potysman and J.C. Reid came up with back-to-back singles to put men on first and third. Paul McNicol appeared slated for stardom when his three-run home run run put the score at 13-10. Harvard was within striking distance.

By now, the bench was sitting up and all eyes were on Jimmy Langton as he hit a stand-up triple to center field. Stan Cal promptly sent him home with a single.

A walk moved Cal to second, and two pitches later he swiped the hot corner. Dave Crowley singled in the 12th and last Crimson run. The rally ended one run shy of its goal with a choppy ground-out to third.

The freshman baseball team's record now stands at 8-3.