The Harvard baseball team traveled to sunny South Florida for its spring break last week. Unfortunately, the Crimson did not spend much of its time basking in the warmth and sunshine.

Harvard (5-6) was handling a little business on the baseball diamond.

The Crimson kicked off its 1997 season with an eight-day, 11-game trip that included contests against several nationally ranked programs. The highlight was a stunning 9-6 victory over the defending College World Series runners-up, the University of Miami Hurricanes, on Saturday.

"[The victory over Miami] was a big win, without a doubt," said Harvard captain Peter Albers. "We showed that we could play baseball at the national level."

The Crimson started the week off slowly, however, dropping its first three games in heartbreaking fashion. Harvard suffered two one-run losses to Stetson University on the final at-bat.

On March 22, the Crimson tied the game at four in the eighth inning only to have a lead-off single by Stetson in the bottom of the ninth turn into the eventual winning run in the 5-4 loss.

The next day lightning struck again as Harvard knotted the score at 1-1 in the top of the ninth before Stetson scored the game winner in the bottom of the inning.

Harvard's next contest against Rollins proved to be a strange affair as the Crimson outhit the Tars 10 to six, watched Rollins commit four errors, but still came up short. The difference proved to be the eight walks given up by the Harvard pitchers as the team fell to the Tars, 11-6.

"We lost some tough games early in the week," Albers said. "We didn't get the breaks, but that's the way baseball goes. You just can't let it affect you."

The Crimson rebounded the next day with a victory over a strong Florida International University squad in the first game of a double-header. Harvard was paced by the stellar pitching performance of sophomore James Kalyvas, who struck out seven batters and scattered five hits over six innings.

Harvard and FIU combined for only eight hits in the contest, but the Crimson was able to capitalize on a couple of costly mistakes by the Golden Panthers in the sixth inning to record the win.

Junior Aaron Kessler led off the frame with a single up the middle and then stole second. After a line out to left field and a strikeout, freshman first baseman Erik Binkowski had an infield single to put runners at the corners with two outs.

Binkowski moved to second on a wild pitch, and two consecutive wild pitches then allowed Kessler and Binkowski to score the only two runs of the game.

Offensively, FIU was held in check by Kalyvas and some excellent defensive plays by third baseman Mike Hochanadel and center fielder Brian Ralph.

The nightcap did not go as well for Harvard as seven Crimson pitchers gave up 17 hits. The Golden Panthers scored 16 runs in the first two innings and cruised to a 17-3 victory.