For Harvard's baseball team, this past weekend's respective double-headers against Columbia and Penn were a bit like biting into the dining hall's version of eggplant parmesan: they didn't taste that bad, but there was an ineffable weirdness to them.

By all standard accounts, the Crimson (7-9 overall, 3-5 Ivy) didn't fare too poorly. Against the Lions (7-15 overall, 5-3 Ivy) on Saturday, a respectable if not incredible middle-division Ivy League squad, Harvard won the first game, 9-5, before dropping a close second contest, 8-6. Against a downright solid Quaker team (13-7 overall, 5-3 Ivy) on Sunday, the Crimson made a heroic comeback in the first game, only to lose 10-9, and then dominated the second game, 15-2.

Despite these respectable outcomes, however, most Harvard players were not particularly happy with their team's play.

"I don't think we're really pleased at all with how we did," captain Mike Giardi said. "It wasn't a disaster by any means, but I think there is the general feeling that we should have swept both games. We just gave up opportunities that good teams take advantage of. We've got some work ahead of us."

Freshman teammate Mike Hochenadel agreed with Giardi's assessment of the weekend.

"We just didn't play like we could have," Hochenadel said. "Columbia and Penn are not bad teams, but we could've beat them. We had some bright spots--we had good comebacks on both Saturday and Sunday, but we came up short on them when we could have won."

Going into the weekend, Columbia looked to be the worse of the two opponents.

But paced on the day by the hitting of right fielder Derek England and second baseman Jason Wynn, the Lions proved a surprisingly-strong challenge.

In the first game, Harvard got off to a quick start and never looked back. The Crimson scored three runs in the first and five in the second to take a 8-0 lead. Despite four Columbia runs in the final three innings, that lead held, as Harvard garnered a 9-5 win.

The Crimson was paced in the game in the hitting department by Giardi, who went two-for-four with three RBIs and one home run.

Harvard junior Jamie Irving (1-2) got the win on the mound, pitching left handed (he is ambidextrous) for five and one-third innings. Freshman reliever Frank Hogan picked up a save on the game.

The second game proved considerably more exciting than the first. This time, the Lions roared out to a quick lead, scoring two in the first and four in the fourth to take a 6-2 lead into the fifth inning.

The Crimson then mounted an impressive comeback, though, scoring four runs in the bottom half of the fifth to notch the score at six.

But these efforts would be for naught; Columbia scored two runs in the seventh inning to lock up the win.

"That second game against Columbia was a real hearbreaker," Giardi said. "You work that hard to come back, and then you blow it. We really should have won that game."