When the sun goes down, the averages of the Harvard softball team go up.

Before sunset yesterday, the Crimson struggled in its opening game with Providence College, relying on Sharon Hayes' eighth-inning sacrifice fly to pull out a hard-fought 2-1 victory.

But in the nightcap, Harvard exploded for 12 hits and swamped the Friars, 4-1.

"I don't know what it is," Harvard Coach John Wentzell said. "We just seem to play best after sundown. In the last four or five innings the bats were ringing."

In the opening contest, the Friars took the Crimson (5-2 overall, 2-2 Ivies) to extra-innings before junior Mary Baldauf crossed the plate to seal the win.

Baldauf led off the inning with a triple, and two batters later Hayes knocked in the winning RBI.

The game was scoreless heading into the sixth inning, when a Crimson error allowed the first run. Harvard rallied in the bottom of the same inning, as Trisha Brown tripled with two outs to score Co-Captain Lisa Rowning.

"We didn't swing the bat too well until the last few innings," Wentzell said.

The Crimson only recorded five hits, with one apiece from Baldauf, Rowning, Brown, Co-Captain Gia Barresi and sophomore Nancy Prior. Providence cracked six hits, three of them in the sixth inning.

"We were just not hitting," junior Hanya Bluestone said. "We kept popping the ball up."

Hot As The Sun

The setting sun may have put a chill on Soldiers Field during the second game, but the Crimson was red hot at the plate, smashing a season-high 12 hits.

The Friars sent three pitchers to the mound, but none could put a stop to the Crimson--especially Baldauf. After smashing a triple to set up the winning run in game one, the second baseman rallied for three more hits in the nightcap, all of them to left field.

Harvard's biggest inning was the third, when the team had four hits to send in two runs. Baldauf led off with a single, and her hitting was contagious as Elizabeth Crowley, Barresi, and Prior followed up with singles of their own.

Providence's only serious challenge to the Crimson lead came in the fifth inning when the Friar first baseman went to the plate with bases loaded and one out. The switch hitter smashed what looked like a sure hit in the direction of right field.

But Baldauf doused the Friar's fire by cleanly fielding the ball and nailing it home to stop the run.

"That was major league play," Wentzell said.

Sophomore Lora Rowning was credited with the first win, while rookie Lee Polikoff recorded her third win in as many outings in game two.

Doubtless

"I can't be more pleased with the pitching," Wentzell said. "Lora is excellent, and Lee responds well when things are challenging out there."

THE NOTEBOOK: Prior, Harvard's leading hitter, went 2-for-4 from the plate in the second contest with a pair of singles...Harvard will host Boston College tomorrow at Soldier's Field...last season the Crimson lost two heartbreakers, 3-2, 2-1, to the Eagles...Faces in the crowd: outgoing women's basketball assistant Coach Beth Wheatley Doran with Coach Kathy Delaney Smith's infant son in tow.