"Baseball's a game of inches," Birtwell said,. "You lose with no excuses. We went down fighting."

Dartmouth 6, Harvard 5, 10 inn.

The eighth inning of game two of Saturday's doubleheader may go down as the turning point in both teams' seasons. Leading 5-2, Harvard's starting pitcher Justin Nyweide recorded consecutive outs to begin the eighth inning. Four outs away from splitting the series at one apiece and stealing a victory on the road, Nyweide showed his first signs of fatigue. Mike Levy singled to left field followed by a Mileusnic single to right. Coach Walsh, who had Birtwell warming up in case Nyweide's arm became too tired, decided to stick with the junior pitcher for at least one more batter. Walsh called for a change-up on the first pitch to Nickerson, who erased Harvard's comfortable three-run lead with one swing of the bat.

"Nickerson has been a thorn in our side for five years," Walsh said of Nickerson, a fifth-year senior and engineering major. "If Nyweide had given up a single, I would have taken him out and gone with Birtwell. Instead, Nickerson hits the homerun, and now it's too late."

Birtwell did enter the game in the bottom of the ninth with the score still tied at five. He retired his first three batters in order, sending the game into extra innings. Harvard could not score in the top of tenth off Dartmouth starter John Velosky, who pitched all ten innings like Grant on Sunday. With one out in the bottom half of the inning, Levy ended the game, hitting a blast over the left field wall off Birtwell for a walk-off home run and a Big Green 6-5 win.

Dartmouth 11, Harvard 9

As was the pattern for the weekend, the Crimson opened the action by falling just short of glory. Harvard almost made a historic comeback, scoring eight unanswered runs after trailing 11-1 in the fourth inning. The Crimson could not get over the hump, falling 11-9 in seven innings.