A heretofore unheralded first baseman, Wheeler unwound on a high fastball from Faiola in the second inning with two runners on, launching the ball miles high over the left-field wall and tying the game at 3-3.

Harvard coach Joe Walsh let loose an emphatic fist pump, and simultaneously, a cadre of scouts sent to watch Faiola—the Co-MVP of the Cape Cod League’s 2004 Postseason—scattered, packing up their radar guns and notepads to head out.

“If you’re here early and see BP, he puts on a show,” Walsh said. “Here’s a kid that came in and got no playing time his first year, then a little bit of playing time. He got a hold of one and drove it pretty good.”

Wheeler, however, wasn’t done. He then sent a rocket single up in the middle in the fourth off another Faiola fastball, and then smacked a two-RBI single to center to give the Crimson an 8-7 lead in the fifth.

He finished the day 5-8 with six RBI.

“I was pretty excited. It was a lot of fun today,” Wheeler said. “I was so pumped to be able to help the team.”

A MIRROR INTO THE FUTURE

In between the halves of the doubleheader, Walsh made a decision which gave Harvard fans an exciting, if not momentarily unsettling, glimpse into the future.

With Farkes bothered by arm problems in the intermission, Walsh switched the junior with freshman Matt Vance, the team’s everyday centerfielder whom he calls the Crimson’s “shortstop of the future.”

While Vance was a star at short in high school at Torrey Pines, it was the first time either player had taken the field at those positions in their collegiate careers.

“[It] was awesome,” Vance said. “I was excited that we made the switch.”

The frosh, ultimately, performed ably in the field save two errors: one in the fifth, and one in the ninth—the latter being potentially infamously disastrous.

Vance muffed what would have been the third and final out of the game, allowing Dartmouth’s tying run to cross the plate.

“It was a little tough for him,” Walsh said. “Some of the balls hit to his right, he laid back on them a little bit. He needed to get a little bit more aggressive on it. But he’s been catching up on the fly balls all year.”

Luckily, though, the error was wiped away by an insane bout of symmetry in the bottom of the same frame.