BOSTON—Another year, another Beanpot consolation game.

Northeastern starter Matt Piryk held the Harvard baseball team scoreless through six innings and the Huskies survived a scare in the final three en route to an 8-4 win in the Beanpot Tournament at Fenway Park yesterday.

With the loss, Harvard misses out on the Beanpot championship game for the fourth straight year. The Crimson—who will play UMass in the consolation game next Tuesday—has not won an outright Beanpot title since 1991.

“They hit the ball and we didn’t,” Harvard Coach Joe Walsh said. “We just don’t hit enough as a ball club. I think guys may be forcing it a little bit to get some hits. I just don’t think we’ve got enough of an attack out there.”

After managing just two hits through the first six frames, the Crimson connected for two in its first three at-bats if the seventh. The inning produced two runs and the ninth produced two more, but a controversial call, an even more controversial non-call and a barely foul ball prevented the mini-uprising from developing into anything greater.

First, the controversial call.

With two runners on, two already in and the heart of the Crimson order due up in the seventh inning, Harvard rightfielder Chaney Sheffield made a chancy bid for a two-out hit with a bunt to the third-base side of the mound. Piryk fielded the squibber cleanly and made a quick throw to the bag that arrived the same time as Sheffield.

The first-base umpire ruled Sheffield out, forcing Harvard to settle for just the two runs. The call enraged Harvard assistant coach Matt Hyde, who was coaching first base, and stranded Harvard’s hottest hitter, senior Mark Mager, in the on-deck circle.

“I thought the guy was safe,” Walsh said. “But that’s baseball.”

More controversy followed in the eighth, after sophomore Trey Hendricks lined a one-out double to deep center. It was the third hit of the day for Hendricks and appeared to set the table perfectly for senior Nick Carter, who had moved to DH after lasting just 3.1 innings as Harvard’s starting pitcher.

Piryk quickly baited Carter into a pop up along the first base side. Huskie first baseman Miguel Paquette made the putout in front of the Northeastern dugout—but not, it appeared, without some help from his teammates inside the dugout, who steadied him as he hovered around the top of the steps.

The play could have been flagged for interference. Walsh certainly thought it should have been—the Harvard skipper had an animated argument with the first-base umpire over the non-call, but to no avail.

On a better hitting day, the Crimson might have rendered the incident a non-issue with a clutch two-out hit. But on a day when Crimson went 1-for-9 with two outs, freshman catcher Schuyler Mann was helpless to snap Harvard out of its funk. He lined out to third, leaving Hendricks on second.

“I just don’t think we had enough of an attack out there,” Walsh said.

The Crimson finally chased Piryk in the ninth after senior Javy Lopez singled and sophomore Mickey Kropf walked to start the inning. The Crimson then loaded the bases with no outs when pinch hitter Johann Schneider walked off Northeastern reliever Justin Hedrick.