Behind the plate, junior Bryan Brissette is still out with a pulled hamstring.

Extra painful is that Brissette is Harvard's second-leading hitter at .325.

Freshman Pete Albers has filled in for Giardi at shortstop, and freshman Craig Wilke is playing for Brissette at catcher. The two have played their positions solidly, so Harvard hasn't felt the void defensively.

"They're definitely good players," Bernhard said. "We were lucky that the injuries occurred where we had very capable people."

But the experience and the batting prowess of Giardi and Brissette are being sorely missed.

Ivy Notes: Giardi ended his college career by making the Ivy League Honor Roll with his 5-for-16 (4 R, 2 RBI) performance in three games against Brown.

Harvard, Dartmouth and Brown are all tied for second place in the Red Rolfe Division, five games behind Yale, meaning that the Bulldogs have clinched their second-straight Division crown.

In the Lou Gehrig Division, Pennsylvania and Columbia are tied for first, and the two will face each other in Philadelphia in a doubleheader this Saturday for the division crown.

Yale will face the winner in the Ivy League Championship the following Saturday and Sunday in Middletown, Conn., in a best-of-three format.

Short Hops: Defense wins ball games--just ask the Crimson. Harvard is 0-15 when it commits more errors than its opponents, but it is 11-2-1 when its defense is equal to or better than the opposition...Harvard is 8-4 when it scores first, but only 3-13-1 when the opposition plates a runner first...Speed on the basepaths has certainly been lacking for Harvard. It has stolen only eight bases in 16 Ivy League games and 21 overall. The Crimson has only one steal in its last six games, and Harvard has failed to record a stolen base in 17 of its 29 games...Bernhard is the most bruised player on the team. He has been hit by a pitch 10 times--the rest of the squad has been hit a total of 12 times...Opening games of double headers still are troublesome for the Crimson, as Harvard is only 3-6. However, the Crimson has come back to take five of the nine nightcaps...Harvard is 4-4 at home, 4-8 on the road and 4-5-1 in neutral sites...One last bit of frustration--Harvard has lost three of the five games in which its pitchers have limited their opponents to five hit or less.