Having relished the sweetness of an Ivy League championship in each of the past three years, the Harvard baseball team was left with a sour taste in its mouth when the 2000 season came to its bitter end.

For the first time in the five-year tenure of Coach Joe Walsh, the Crimson (18-25, 10-10 Ivy) failed to qualify for the postseason, earning a lackluster third-place finish in the Red Rolfe Division behind Dartmouth and Brown.

Having entered the season with an amazing 64-16 record in Ivy play since 1996, the Crimson showed that it was not invincible this year, suffering 10 league losses.

"I felt like the league got better and we didn't," Walsh said. "I'd like to say we had a good season, but there isn't anybody who's going to believe that."

To its credit, the Crimson started off the Ivy season in impressive fashion, winning pairs of victories against Cornell, Pennsylvania and Columbia, as well as earning a split on the road against Princeton.

But during the much more important stretch of meetings with teams in its own division, the Crimson utterly collapsed, dropping nine of those 12 games.

Even lowly Yale, which finished dead last in the Ivy standings with only three conference victories, won all three of those games against Harvard.

The Crimson had swept its four-game series with the Bulldogs one year earlier.

The mediocre finish by the 2000 edition of the Harvard baseball team belied yet another fine year turned in by the team's pitchers.

Junior ace John Birtwell, the 1999 Ivy League Pitcher of the Year, led the way, pitching much better than his 2-3 record might suggest while boasting the lowest ERA on the staff (3.31).

Sophomore righthander Ben Crockett was also extremely effective throughout the season, allowing just 23 earned runs in 51.2 innings of work.

Crockett, the Ivy League Co-Rookie of the Year last season, deserved at least a couple more victories in addition to the four games he did win. In the four games in which Crockett was credited with the loss, the Crimson offense scored an average of just 1.5 runs per game.

Nonetheless, the fact that both Birtwell and Crockett are returning next season, combined with the promise displayed by freshman phenom Kenon Ronz and a host of other young pitchers this year, ensures that the tradition of Harvard pitching excellence will continue into next season.

Walsh says it is the astounding potential of the Crimson's young staff of hurlers especially that gives him reason for optimism about next year.

"We can play with anybody with our pitching," Walsh said. "We had guys sitting here [this season] who are freshmen who didn't get opportunities but will be great pitchers down the line. You got pitching, you got a chance."