In Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 comedic thriller North by Northwest, Cary Grant is pursued across the country after the becoming victim of mistaken identity. Yesterday afternoon, after a disastrous weekend at Yale, a Harvard baseball team in search of its offensive identity tried to avoid going South by Northeastern.

Harvard succeeded, but just like in a Hitchcock film, the suspense was there until the late stages.

The Crimson (15-15, 8-3 Ivy) defeated Northeastern yesterday, 6-1, in a game that was originally supposed to take place on Wednesday.

The win was far from secure until the bottom of the eighth, when sophomore shortstop Mark Mager's 2-RBI double keyed a four-run inning for Harvard.

Mager went 2-for-3, batting in three runs and scoring another, and the Crimson pitching combined to hold the Huskies (14-11) to one run on three hits.

Harvard left ten men on base and was unable to get much going offensively for most of the game, but still managed to rebound from an abysmal 1-2 weekend at Yale.

Two of Yale's wins had been shutouts, and for a while, a third scoreless outing seemed possible. Northeastern right-hander Ken Henry (2-3) kept the Crimson off the board for four innings.

"We didn't capitalize on all of our opportunities early on," Harvard Coach Joe Walsh said. "But we did a lot of other things right, got some hits late and came up with the win."