Dave Stenhouse, younger brother of former Crimson slugger Mike Stenhouse '80, played behind the plate for Holy Cross in yesterday's 5-2 Harvard victory.
And Tom and Ed Scannell--brothers of Harvard varsity hoopster Ann--manned the corners of an airtight Crusader infield.
If those weren't coincidences enough, Vin Eruzione, whose older brother Mike gained fame as captain of the 1980 Olympic hockey team, prowled the territory between first and second for the visitors.
But while all these things were going on around him, Crimson junior lefthander Jim Curtin made yesterday's really important news, allowing just four singles and no earned runs in nine full innings of work.
The win was Harvard's fourth in a row and raised the squad's season record to 11-8. The team puts its 4-2 Eastern League mark up for grabs this weekend, with a single game against Brown Friday afternoon and a twin bill against Yale Saturday.
Curtin mixed fast balls, curves and a powerful slider effectively all afternoon, walking just one and striking out three to dispose of the Crusaders.
"I never felt like the fast ball was really working." Curtin said after the game. "I almost had it, but not quite. I rared back a couple of times pretty good with it. The slider was working pretty good, though."
Yesterday was the southpaw's third start of the year and his second win. After allowing just eight hits to pace the Crimson in an 8-3 win over B.C., Curtin allowed six hits and no earned runs. Not bad for a hurler who is supposed to be no better than number three on the staff.
"Jimmy's just about come around," Crimson head coach Alex Nahigian said following the contest. Then he paused. "No, he has come around. He has always thrown hard, we've just been a little concerned about his control. He has found it."
Curtin walked just one Crusader and rarely found himself behind the hitters, going to three-and-one on just two hitters late in the game. "They were swinging at almost everything," he said. "That's really nice."
In the meantime, Curtin's teammates were driving the ball into 20-30 mph winds with more than enough success, backing up the pitcher's efforts with an eight-hit attack. Most of the power came from the middle part of the batting order, particularly Vinnie Martelli and Chuck Marshall.
Martelli poked a line shot into the right-center gap in the first inning for a triple, knocking in Brad Bauer for the Crimson's first run, and belted a home run in the third with Bauer on board again.
Marshall, who has lately been breaking out of an early-season slump, added two doubles and a single to the Harvard attack.
Holy Cross opened the scoring with an unearned run in the first inning, capitalizing on Gary Quinlan's lead-off infield single and an error by Crimson second baseman Gaylord Lyman.
After Martelli's run-scoring triple in Harvard's half of the first. Holy Cross scored again in the third to take a 2-1 advantage. Martelli erased that for good in the Harvard third with his two-run homer. Harvard added single runs in both the fifth and the sixth to ice the win.
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