NEW HAVEN, Conn.--It isn't often that one inning can salvage a weekend, but in the ultimate crunch-time frame of the season, the Crimson responded.

With its four-game set against Red Rolfe-rival Yale about to go the way of an unlocked car on a New Haven street, the Harvard baseball team woke up from a 27-inning slumber and rattled off two runs against Bulldog starter Sudha Reddy to break a 2-2 tie, escaping with a pair of doubleheader splits to maintain a threegame divisional lead.

Senior captain David Forst, who struggled through a 2-14 weekend, opened the prototype Crimson rally with a line-drive single into short centerfield and moved over on junior third baseman Todd Harris's sacrifice bunt. A passed ball later, Forst sprinted home with the go-ahead run when junior second baseman Hal Carey lifted a sacrifice fly to the rightfield corner.

"I wanted to do something productive," Carey said. "I had been hitting little grounders and tappers, and I wanted to get the ball up in the air."

Senior centerfielder Brian Ralph followed with an insurance RBI, plating pinch runner Rich Linden on a sinking fly ball to center good for two bases, staking Harvard to a 4-2 lead.

Sophomore righthander Derek Lennon, who had relieved starter James Kalyvas in the fourth, tossed a perfect bottom of the seventh to ice the Bulldogs, salvaging what could have been an absolutely horrendous weekend in southern Connecticut.

"The fourth game was a gut check for us," said Coach Joe Walsh. "It was when we found out what kind of a team we are--we get tough when the game is on the line, and that's a real positive." HARVARD (game 1)  2 YALE  5 HARVARD (game 2)  10 YALE  7 HARVARD (game 3)  3 YALE  9 HARVARD (game 4)  4 YALE  2

The win took some of the sting out of two otherwise dreary days of baseball at Yale Field, as the Crimson (20-9,9-3 Ivy) overcame nine errors, hard-luck losses from aces Andrew Duffell and Garett Vail and quality starts from four Bulldog arms to hold Yale (14-17, 6-6) at bay in the pennant chase.

Harvard 4, Yale 2

Urgently needing the last of this fourgame set,Walsh looked to the junior righthander Kalyvas toprovide some muscle on the hill. Kalyvas obliged,working three and two-thirds innings of four-hitball before feeling a pop in his right elbow afterfiring a wild pitch.

It was a tough break for Kalyvas, who hadsuffered a sore arm earlier in the season but wasthrowing effectively before he exited in thebottom of the fourth in the middle of a jam.

With one run in on the wild pitch and runnerson second and third, Kalyvas gave way to Lennon,who inherited a two-strike count on sophomorefirst baseman Mike Kahney.

Lennon trotted methodically in from the pen,took his warmups, gritted his teeth and snappedoff a hard slider, getting Kahney to bite as theball dipped across his kneecaps, stranding thepair and preserving the tie for the Harvard bats.

"I had been throwing my slider a lot in thepen, and it was breaking nice," Lennon said."[Junior catcher Jason] Keck came out and told me,`This guy can't hit sliders,' so I broke it offand got the out."

Lennon then found a serious groove, workingthree more no-hit innings to earn his secondstraight win in long relief.

Reddy was strong all afternoon for theBulldogs, taking the loss in a complete-gameeffort, scattering five hits and allowing onlythree earned runs--Yale's third complete-gamestart of the series.

Harvard could manage only two runs before theseventh, getting a RBI double from Keck in thefirst and a ribbie single from senior leftfielderAaron Kessler in the third.