The Big Green’s own freshman shortstop, Erik Bell—also out of California—muffed an identical groundball hit by Vance himself which would have sent the game into extra innings. Instead, senior Ian Wallace scored the winning run (unearned) on the play.
“That’s just baseball for you right there,” Vance said. But nevertheless: “I felt like an ass after that last play.”
IS THERE NO ONE ELSE
If Harvard wins just one game at Hanover, N.H. today, it clinches the Red Rolfe Division crown and a trip to the Ivy League Championship Series. It has already won a share of the title by sweeping yesterday.
If the Crimson doesn’t win either contest, then Harvard will play a one-game playoff against the Bears to decide who gets to face Lou Gehrig Division-winner Cornell.
Brown swept its doubleheader yesterday against third-place Yale, roughing up the Ivy League’s number one pitching staff and—notably—putative Ivy League Pitcher of the Year Josh Sowers in the first game. The Bears and Bulldogs split their doubleheader Friday.
Harvard split four games with the Bears in Providence, R.I. last weekend.
The Big Red, meanwhile, shattered Princeton’s chokehold over the conference and arguably the entire Ivy League yesterday by beating The Tigers 4-3 in the first game of a doubleheader to clinch its spot in the ICS.
Princeton had previously won four of the past five Ivy titles, except for 2002 when Harvard defeated them in the ICS.
The winner of the ICS—which will be played at either Harvard or Brown, and not Cornell, due to strength of record—receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Baseball America currently predicts the Ivy winner to be headed to a regional in Gainesville, Fla.
THE GAME THAT NEVER WAS
HANOVER, N.H.—Most know how Saturday’s doubleheader in Hanover, N.H. was canceled due to rain and postponed for tomorrow.
What most do not know is that the doubleheader actually started before the umpiring crew decided to call the game due to concern for injury after 4 1/2 innings.
But because the contest had not reached baseball’s necessary five-inning threshold—required for games to officially count if postponed or shortened—the innings were forever erased from the baseball universe.
The Crimson, incidentally, led 4-2 with no outs in bottom of the fifth, just three outs away from a crucial win over Dartmouth—a win which, combined with today’s sweep, would have won Harvard the division.
“Three more outs and we would have had one in the books,” Mann said. “It was a big disappointment to get so close, and obviously it was a huge game to have in our win column. But today is another day.”
At the time of cancellation, there were men on first and third, and freshman Shawn Haviland was warming in the bullpen.
Junior pitcher Javy Castellanos had started the game and was perfect through four innings before fraying in the fifth, and junior Josh Klimkiewicz hit his seventh home run, which he hit “again” yesterday at home.
—Staff writer Pablo S. Torre can be reached at torre@fas.harvard.edu.