Last year, the Harvard baseball team rolled confidently through its Ivy League schedule only to be shocked by Princeton in the league championship series. Now, the stage is set for the Crimson to add the piece that was missing from last year's puzzle.

"I'm pretty excited for the team because we were there last year and lost, but we learned something," captain Peter Albers said. "We can take what we learned last year into this game and hopefully produce a different result."

Harvard (28-11, 18-2 Ivy) swept Dartmouth (22-16) in a double-header Monday to clinch the Red Rolfe division title and secure a spot in this weekend's Ivy League championship series. With Harvard's doubleheader sweep of Dartmouth on Sunday, Monday's wins completed a four-game weekend sweep of the Big Green.

In the doubleheader opener, junior centerfielder Brian Ralph continued his hot hitting, blasting a solo homer and driving in three runs to help give starter Andrew Duffell (6-0) the complete-game victory, 12-4. The win pushed Harvard a game and a half in front of idle Yale to mathematically eliminate the Elis.

In the nightcap, which was academic, senior Mike Hochanadel's 4-for-4 day and a home run by Albers paced the still-scorching Crimson bats to a 7-4 win for sophomore starter Donald Jamieson (4-2). Harvard's nine-game winning streak was then snapped yesterday with a 6-3 loss to Northeastern (27-17) in non-league play.

Harvard will play either Penn or Princeton at O'Donnell Field for the Ancient Eight title. The Tigers and Quakers are tied for first place in the Lou Gehrig division, and will decide the division title with a nine-inning "play-in" this afternoon.

The league championship will be a best-of-three series, with the first two games played Saturday, and the clincher played Sunday, if necessary.

Harvard 12, Dartmouth 4

Foremost in the minds of Harvard's players on Monday was the necessity of avoiding the fate of Princeton and Penn. Without a win in Monday's doubleheader opener, the Crimson would have been in a must-win situation in the second game if it was to avoid a one-game play-off with the Bulldogs.

"We didn't want to have to go to the fourth game," Duffell said. "We wanted to win right there."

Harvard scored nine runs on nine hits in the first three innnings, quickly putting to rest any notions Dartmouth may have had of acting as a spoiler. After putting two on the board in the first inning, Ralph led off the third with a home run over the right-field fence.

The Crimson then sandwiched seven hits between three fielding errors by the Big Green to score another six runs in the inning and all but clinch the division title.

While Harvard's offense was keeping the heads of Dartmouth's pitchers turned, Duffell was holding the Big Green at bay at the plate. After allowing a run in the first on an RBI double by senior centerfielder Andrew Spencer, Duffell held Dartmouth scoreless over the next four innings.

"The runs early on helped me out," Duffell said. "I could feel real confident about the fast-ball. I just threw it down the middle and let them hit it."

The Big Green mounted a mini-rally in the sixth when Spencer hit an RBI single and freshman first baseman Aaron Meyer brought him home with a two-run homer. But the three runs in the inning turned out to be all Dartmouth could muster, as Duffell struck out freshman James Little to end the game.