"I think it's clear from the statistics, and it's clear if you watched the team, that the seniors played a big part in what we accomplished," Forst said. "It's amazing what this class has accomplished. If you would have told me after our 10-25 season that we'd be back-to-back Ivy League champs and take two trips to the Regional, I would have thought you were talking about a different program."

Forst entered 1998 coming off a .286 pre-playoff campaign in which he played typically sparkling defense at shortstop, but consistently hit out of the nine-hole, managing just 30 hits. The captain worked with a wooden bat all summer, and shot to the five-slot in the order, leading the team in batting average at .406 while setting an all-time Harvard record for hits in a season with 67.

The shortstop--who had a career 26 RBI--added a team-best 39 and slugged .627, becoming the Ivy's most unlikely batting threat. As captain, Forst was plainly the emotional center of the team, and even when his uncharacteristic error totals plagued his glovework, he found a way to crank out a 4-for-4 or keep an inning rolling.

Marcucci settled into the middle relief role and side-armed and junkballed his way to the All-Ivy First Team, going 7-0 to equal a school mark for winning percentage, and in four years with the Crimson never managed to lose a game.

He worked the treacherous middle innings of a staff-high 21 games, and for an April stretch of the Ivy schedule, bagged what seemed like a win every other game, finishing with a very clean 3.29 ERA.

All-Ivy honorable mentions Kessler and Vankoski each enjoyed .300-plus seasons at the plate, Kessler drilling 56 hits and swiping 22 bases out of the leadoff slot, and Vankoski finishing .302 with two homers and 25 RBI.

Masters of their Domain

As it has since Walsh took the helm, the Crimson dominated Ivy League competition, posting a 16-4 regular season mark and sweeping Lou Gehrig division titlist Princeton in the Championship Series. In the last three seasons, Harvard has tallied a 52-15 record against the Ancient Eight.

And en route to its No. 1 ranking in New England, the Crimson dispensed with all of its area competition, bagging road wins at Rhode Island, Holy Cross and Providence, and three times topping last year's NCAA participant Northeastern. Only two rainouts conspired to prevent the Crimson from nabbing its first Beanpot title since 1991 and a win over in-state rival UMass.

Harvard began the Ivy campaign off a 7-6 Florida spring training trip, which included a near-miss 10-7 loss to Oklahoma State and closed rather unceremoniously with a three-game sweep at the hands of then top-ranked Miami.

This, after the talk of the 1997 spring training trip had been a 7-6 squeaker the Crimson stole from the Hurricanes.

Harvard's first stop was Princeton's Clarke Field, ever a site of bad memories--like a two-game sweep in the 1996 Championship Series.

True to form, the Crimson had some difficulty making the switch from sunny Dade county to southern New Jersey, and while junior righthander Andrew Duffell shook off offseason surgery to nail down a 6-3 win in the opener, classmate Garett Vail took it on the chin in a 10-2 loss in the nightcap.

While Princeton continued to plague the Crimson, history intimated that the two would meet again in the Ivy Championships, and Harvard kept its end of the bargain, blazing through its conference schedule to win 21 of its next 24.

The critical weekend of the season--a four game set at then-second place Yale--provided the barometer for the Crimson's progress. Although the Bulldogs got complete games from three starters, including Ivy Pitcher of the Year Eric Gutshall, Harvard worked out a split on the strength of a ninth-inning rally in Game Four keyed by Forst, Ralph and junior third baseman Hal Carey.