Then he scanned further down the lineup.

“I saw my name, batting ninth at DH,” Shakir said. “It was the first time I had ever DH’ed.”

Shakir may have been surprised—“I was the last guy on the bench for most of that year,” he says—but Walsh recognized a hot bat when he saw one. After earning a surprise start in the second game of a doubleheader against Yale that April, Shakir went on a late-season tear that raised his average to .355.

Shakir rode that hot streak into the postseason. In that crucial at-bat against Princeton, he lofted the second pitch over the drawn-in infield for a two-run single, giving Harvard the lead—and the title.

After the game, Shakir called it the greatest moment of his young career. Three years later, the memory still causes some goosebumps.

“There are a some things I definitely remember from freshman year—that’s one of them,” he said.

One year after Shakir’s clutch performance, he emerged as Harvard’s starting second baseman. As a sophomore, he had the second-best average on the team, enjoying a 13-game hitting streak in April. His performance earned him honorable mention to the All-Ivy team.

Shakir has also become a stabilizing presence up the middle. He and Mager—the guts of Harvard’s all-senior infield—form one of the league’s most reliable double-play combinations. Mager says the two bring out the best in each other.

“We just have a chemistry,” Mager said. “There’s no one I’d rather play next to.”

Their cooperation pays off at the plate, as well.

“Faiz and I always like to be hitting next to each other because if one of us gets on base, the other can do some situational hitting and vice versa,” Mager said.

Shakir says he prefers the top of the order to the bottom because it usually means an extra at-bat per game. Still, he points out that batting ninth has its advantages—like the luxury of being more aggressive at the plate.

“I like to swing at the first pitch,” Shakir said. “It’s usually a good one to hit. When you’re hitting leadoff or second, you want to take more pitches to get a read on the pitcher.”

Shakir’s aggressiveness paid off in game one of last Sunday’s doubleheader against Cornell, when he collected a team-high three hits. He also knocked in two runs and scored two more.

It was a breakthrough game for Shakir, who had been mired in a 1-for-30 slump entering the weekend.