Junior second baseman Faiz Shakir began the parade of miscues when his hurried throw to first pulled freshman first baseman Marc Hordon off the bag, costing Harvard an easy out.

In the third, consecutive errors charged to junior shortstop Mark Mager gave the Rams first and third with two outs. When URI third baseman Daniel Batz attempted to steal, O’Donnell’s throw sailed past second base and into the outfield to plate another Ram. The three-error inning was by far the worst fielding frame for Harvard this year.

When the Crimson wasn’t throwing the game away in the field, it was being flustered at the plate by a rookie hurler. Preston made the first start of his collegiate career yesterday, and did not allow a Crimson run in his first five innings of work.

“To win a baseball game, you need to pitch, hit and field,” O’Donnell said. “We didn’t do two of those things.”

They also didn’t run the bases especially well. Hordon got the Crimson’s first hit on a single to shallow right field. Hordon rounded first base and glanced toward the outfield to see if he could turn the hit into a double. When he saw that it would be too risky, he scampered back to first.

He didn’t scamper quickly enough. Center fielder John Scullin gunned him down at first.

The mistakes continued. Crimson outfielders misjudged two wind-aided fly balls that turned into extra base hits. Junior right fielder Javy Lopez missed the cutoff man in the fourth inning on one of these, turning Rhode Island shortstop Mike LaBarbera’s double into an easy triple.