Looking Forward

Harvard is once again the prohibitive favorite to repeat in the Ivy, although Yale and Dartmouth will provide the major competition in the Red Rolfe Division.

The Bulldogs lose First Team All-Ivy starter Eric Gutshall, but return Jon Levy and Sudha Reddy to the rotation. They are joined by defending Player of the Year Tony Coyne, who won the Triple Crown by hitting .378 with 10 homers and 43 RBI.

Outfielders Ben Johnstone, who hit .381 with 26 stolen bases, and R.D. DeSantis, who hit .298, are the returning outfield starters.

"Yale's a great ball club," Walsh said. "They're the team to beat, no doubt. It's funny, we may win the Ivy League and not have a single player on the All-Ivy."

Dartmouth sports the best 3-4-5 in the league, with first baseman Aaron Meyer, who hit .450 with 11 home runs and 48 RBI, third baseman Mike Conway, who hit .434 with 28 RBI and Brian Nickerson, a Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American returning from injury.

But with the new 64-team NCAA format, winning the Ivy becomes much more important. 16 four-team regionals make up the first round of the NCAA Tournament, and the Ivy winner gets an automatic bid. In previous years, the Ivy champion participated in a play-in to earn a berth in the field of 48.

"I'm not sure if it will help or hurt us," Carey said. "If they send us a top team from the South as the No. 1, we'll be in the same boat. But it should help us against the bottom teams and get us a two or three seed."

However post-season play breaks down, the Crimson's single goal is to be involved. Indeed, the program has made such progress in Walsh's three years at the helm that anything less than a tournament berth would be unacceptable. And for Walsh, he's shooting even higher.

"Like every year, our goal is to be the last team standing," Walsh said.