“Conner pitched a hell of a game,” Albright said.

But the Crimson offense provided its emerging ace with no margin of error, and when the errors came, the game went for Harvard.

With two outs in the sixth, Sacred Heart’s Mike Drowne hit a high fly ball to left. Harvard junior Sam Franklin seemed to have it squared up, but he lost the ball in the sun and it hit the grass for a double.

Hulse buckled down and induced a ground ball to third off the bat of Pioneer Steve Tedesco. Sophomore Jeff Reynolds fielded the ball at third base with a backhanded stab and considered tagging Drowne before throwing to first. The hesitation cost Reynolds, and his toss sailed over senior first baseman Dan Zailskas’ head, allowing Drowne to score the game’s only run.

“[Making the tag] is a decent play when the ball’s hit to your backhand and you have to make the long throw,” Walsh said, “but it got [Reynolds] out of sync, and he’s gotta throw the ball across the diamond. You wish you played on turf all the time, because then you would have known to one-hop it over there.”

But all hope was not lost for the Crimson players, who loaded the bases in the top of the seventh and final inning with no outs and seemed on the verge of a comeback.

Harvard’s chances for victory seemed even more realistic when Franklin hit a screaming line drive to left, but Tedesco quickly deflated the Crimson’s aspirations. The Sacred Heart senior snatched the ball out of the air with a leaping grab and unleashed a strike to home plate, gunning down sophomore right fielder Brent Suter, who had tagged from third.

With runners on first and second, Albright grounded out, and Harvard suffered a 1-0 loss.

—Staff writer Loren Amor can be reached at lamor@fas.harvard.edu.