Although MIT narrowed the lead to one run on Chenevey's wild pitch, Harvard's designated hitter Frank Morelli added an insurance run with a homer over the right-field fence--his fourth dinger of the year.
Harvard 3, MIT 2
Harvard pitcher Kevin Curtin, rebounding from a rocky performance against Columbia last weekend, hurled his first complete game of the year to give the batsmen the nightcap.
In his seven innings of work, Curtin allowed two runs, struck out six batters and surrendered just one walk--to the first batter of the game.
"[Curtin] is an outstanding college pitcher," MIT Coach Fran O'Brien said. "He has a great breaking pitch, and he had great control of his game."
Not until the fifth inning, when Poole hit a ground-rule double, did an MIT player reach second base. Poole advanced to third on a fly ball and scored on Marc Friend's grounder, cutting MIT's deficit at the time to two runs.
Harvard tallied twice in the second, on successive doubles by Jamieson and Vallone, and a RBI single by DePalo.
Jamieson, who collected two hits in the game and three on the day, continued his recent hitting binge. The third baseman entered last week's Boston College contest with a .167 batting average, but eight hits in his last 18 at-bats have raised his average to a respectable .271.
"I have more confidence," the left-handed batter said. "The coach is keeping me in, even against left-handed pitchers."
Vallone, too, contributed with two hits and two walks in the nightcap. After receiving a base on balls in the fifth, Vallone advanced to second on Bob Kay's sacrifice, moved to third on a grounder, and scored on a wild pitch to make the score 3-0.
The Engineers' trouble with sacrifice bunts returned to haunt them in the closing frames of the nightcap.
After Curtin yielded singles to Zermani and Poole, Henry Hoeh fouled off one sacrifice attempt, missed at another, and eventually pulled back on a pitch that landed in the strike zone for a called third strike.
Curtin struck out Friend in the following confrontation, but Hoeh's failure to sacrifice the runners over loomed large when Mountz's RBI single drove Zermani in from second base.
But with the score 3-2 and two runners on base, Curtin got the pinch-hitter Griffin to pop out.