After a row of bad weather, rain delays, postponements, and cancellations, the season that refused to finish finally did. It just didn’t happen the way that most expected it to in April.
Or, arguably, May.
Harvard swept Cornell—not Princeton—on Monday afternoon, winning the best-of-three Ivy Championship Series and finally punching its ticket to the NCAA Tournament. And it wasn’t the big bats that had carried the Crimson against the Tigers, Brown, and Dartmouth that did the job.
No home runs were hit, but junior hurler Frank Herrmann and freshman Shawn Haviland dazzled all in attendance, allowing no earned runs over 16 innings in the two closest games of the 2005 season. Herrmann threw a nine-inning, complete game shutout, while Haviland permitted just two singles over seven innings before being relieved by his classmate, closer Steffan Wilson.
Not bad for a staff once expected to be hard-hitting Harvard’s weakest link.
“You can’t even begin to say how huge that was,” captain Schuyler Mann said. “We knew what we were going up against, and [Haviland and Herrmann] proved they were two of the best in the league.”
After struggling to find his rhythm early in the first game, Herrmann rediscovered a sweeping breaking ball which kept the Big Red off-balance in the later innings, fanning five in the fifth through ninth frames. Haviland, meanwhile, worked quickly, notably throwing a three-pitch seventh after allowing his second single in the sixth.
The Crimson won 2-0 behind Herrmann, and then 4-2 on the strength of Haviland’s start.
So why did fans in attendance see the frosh instead of Harvard coach Joe Walsh’s typical Game 2 starter, Mike Morgalis?
The undefeated senior, Walsh said, didn’t start the second game as he usually does for two reasons: first, Morgalis works better on nine days of rest; and second, Walsh wanted someone with more experience if the series ultimately came down to an all-or-nothing third contest.
Morgalis, though, looks to get his chance on the hill soon enough.
“He’ll start Game One in the [NCAA] Regionals, I’ll tell you that much,” Walsh said.
MORGAN BROWN, MVP
Ask someone today who Harvard’s 2005 MVP is, and the statistics would lead you everywhere around the diamond—to catcher, to first, to second, to third—and maybe, just maybe, to short.
