Crockett also had his usual menacing curveball and low-90s heater working for him.

“We have confidence to throw the curve in all situations, but a lot of times we don’t even need to because his fastball is so good,” Mann said of Crockett. “If there’s a really good hitter, we’ll throw the curve to catch him off guard. It works well because [Crockett] throws it so hard.”

The Harvard hitters gave Crockett plenty of run support Saturday, ripping three home runs off Yale rookie Josh Sowers.

Hendricks was the first to go deep with a shot to right-center to start the top of the second. Then, with two outs in the third, Hale ripped his second homer of the year to center. That blast put Harvard up 3-0.

The grandest shot of all came with Harvard ahead 5-0 in the sixth. Mann, who had doubled in his first at-bat, hit an absolute bomb to straightway left field. The moonshot hovered around the top of a lightstand when it cleared the fence and elicited a chorus of oohs and aahs from the Harvard dugout.

“It was 3-1 and I was sitting pretty,” Mann said of the at-bat. “I got a fastball and just jumped on it.”

The power surge took the pressure off Crockett, who started to show signs of mortality in the seventh, giving up a pair of runs on three hits. He probably should have escaped the inning with his shutout intact, but a Fortenbaugh fly ball to right field dropped in between Hale and Sheffield when neither called for it.

The fly ball would have been the second out of the inning. Crockett got the next hitter, Yale first baseman Kyle Misenti, to ground out for what would have then been the third out. Instead, the grounder plated a run and Yale’s next batter, Orrico, singled to drive in another.

Crockett ran into a little more difficulty in the eighth, as Yale strung together three consecutive singles up the middle to produce a run. The Elis left the bases loaded, though, as Crockett got Fortenbaugh swinging and Misenti on a ground ball to second.

Crockett, who attracted another couple dozen scouts to Yale Field for his start, confirmed yesterday that he feels no lingering effects from the elbow problems that first bothered him in the fall of 2000.

“It doesn’t cross my mind anymore,” Crockett said of the injury. “I’ve been continuing my conditioning programs on both my elbow and my shoulder. If anything, it’s an afterthought.”

Harvard 6, Yale 5

Senior Justin Nyweide (3-2) escaped a seventh-inning jam to gut out a complete-game victory in the series opener on Saturday.

A leadoff single by Chris Esper put the potential tying run on base and a one-out single by Orrico moved Esper into scoring position. But Nyweide got Beasley—Yale’s leading top run-producer with 21 RBI entering the weekend—to ground into a 6-4-3 double play that stranded Esper and ended the game.

The Crimson had taken a 6-3 lead in the fourth. Harvard batted around in the inning against Yale lefthander Craig Breslow and pushed across five runs.