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{shortcode-be29865d8a9c7908fa05930b7f2d42574eaa573c}t was never supposed to happen. After losing 16 straight games to start the 2025 season, the Crimson gathered in the locker room for a team meeting. The frustration was obvious. Something needed to change.

“We all talked, and you’re just like, ‘What is going on? Fix it’,” sophomore right-hander Truman Pauley said. “We’re so behind on everything. Our record’s already terrible.”

Weeks later, not much had changed.

On April 11, the Harvard baseball team dropped its 20th game of the season — a 1–0 loss to Princeton at O’Donnell Field that left the Crimson staring down a 4–21 overall and 2–8 in Ivy League play. Any dreams of a postseason felt distant at best.

But just an hour later, Pauley took the mound in the second game of a doubleheader. The pressure was building — and in the blink of an eye, everything began to turn around.

Over 8.1 innings, Pauley held Princeton hitless — striking out 12 Tigers and walking just three — before a double in the ninth inning broke up the no-hitter. Harvard won 3–2.

If Pauley had completed the game without giving up a hit, he would have been the first Harvard pitcher to throw a no-hitter in Ivy League competition since 2018 — and only the second to do so since 2001.

The team didn’t know it then, but that win wasn’t just a win — it was a turning point.

“Going out in the ninth today, that’s the best experience I’ve ever had,” Pauley said in a postgame interview with Harvard Athletics. “I wasn’t that dialed in until the eighth inning. And I was like, ‘Oh, Coach is letting me go for it. I really gotta try and lock in right now.’”

From that moment on, the Crimson locked in for the rest of the season.

‘A Lot of Adversity’

Harvard opened the 2025 season with an unforgiving road slate — 15 straight games away from home, including series against Big Ten and SEC opponents. The Crimson went 0–6 at neutral sites and dropped three straight in Florida by a combined score of 35–6. By March’s end, they had been swept by Penn and had an embarrassing 2–13 record.

Even back home, the losses continued to mount. By the time Princeton arrived in mid-April, Harvard had dropped seven of its last nine Ivy League games. A particularly brutal 1–17 defeat at Yale only deepened the team’s struggles. With a dismal 4–20 record, Harvard’s postseason hopes appeared all but out of reach.

But inside the Harvard baseball clubhouse, the energy was shifting.

“There was a lot of adversity at the beginning of the season,” senior George Cooper, who finished his Crimson career tied for sixth all-time in hits, said. “Clearly, our record was not as good as this team is. The team chemistry, the focus factor, the love of the game — it was at an all-time peak.”

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Lighting the Fire

After the standout performance from Pauley, Harvard began to gain momentum.

The Crimson took two of three games from Cornell, then swept Brown on the road in a three-game offensive explosion that saw the team score 29 runs. But the following week brought a harsh reality check, as Harvard suffered a brutal home sweep at the hands of Columbia — including a lopsided 1–19 loss.

Despite the setback, the Crimson still had a path to the Ivy League playoffs. To get there, the team needed a win in its regular-season finale against Princeton — a game that had been postponed due to rain — and some help from Yale.

On May 7, Harvard delivered, closing out the regular season with a 5–3 victory over Princeton. With a 9–12 conference record, its postseason hopes rested on a tiebreaker — and a Yale sweep of Dartmouth.

It all came together.

“Honestly, it was an awesome, awesome opportunity that we got to play in the tournament,” Cooper said. “We did our thing, beat Princeton, and then sat there waiting, watching. It’s an incredible feeling to do all that you can and then still have the ball in someone else’s court. Us getting that opportunity — it lit the fire under us.”

The Crimson embraced its underdog status.

“We were saying we were playing with house money,” Cooper added. “It was just so infectious among the whole team — this love, this passion, and this will to prove the world wrong.”

‘So Personal’

Harvard opened the Ivy League Tournament by stunning top-seeded Yale, 3–1, on May 16. The team couldn’t have done it without strong performances from the pitchers — Fang’s six-inning, one-run performance and junior Gio Colasante’s three RBIs. The next day, the Crimson met Columbia.

Enter Pauley.

Facing the Ivy League’s most consistent offense, Pauley delivered a postseason gem: nine innings, 13 strikeouts, one unearned run, and just five hits. His 13 strikeouts set a new Ivy League Tournament record,

“The adrenaline was like, well, higher than anything I’ve ever experienced. It was pretty insane to be in those situations,” Pauley said.

Though Harvard ultimately fell 4–1 in extra innings, Pauley’s performance stands among the most dominant in program history — postseason or otherwise.

“He had one of the best pitching years I’ve ever seen,” Cooper said. “It’s hard to be fearless and pull the best out of your teammates, but Truman did that.”

After the brutal loss to Yale earlier in the season, Harvard baseball came back for revenge when it mattered most in an elimination game. Harvard finally fell to Columbia in the tournament final, finishing as Ivy League playoffs runner-up.

“It was just amazing to beat Yale twice. We loved it. We loved every second of it. It was so personal,” Cooper said.

“If I went back to that day, we had the team meeting, like I would have never predicted that we would have been in the championship of that tournament,” Pauley said.

Going the Distance

Pauley, Fang, and Colasante were all named to the Ivy League All-Tournament Team. Colasante hit .412 with two home runs, six RBIs, and a save. Fang held Yale to a .200 average. And Pauley etched his name into the Ivy League record books.

Over his final five starts, Pauley struck out 41 batters in 29.1 innings, and allowed just 11 earned runs. His command, poise, and postseason dominance marked one of the best pitching stretches in Crimson memory.

The final record — 14–28 overall, 9–12 Ivy — doesn’t capture the energy of the last four weeks. For a program that reached an NCAA Regional only once since 2005, the resilience of the 2025 team that was on the doorstep of another one signaled a new trajectory. The team’s growth — and Pauley’s leadership — weren’t lost on veterans like Cooper.

“He’s a young guy in a really crucial role, one of the pillars of our pitching staff, and he stepped up in so many ways,” Cooper said. “He’s growing into his own. He’s becoming a leader — already is a leader.”

For Harvard baseball, 2025 was a season defined not by where it began, but by where it refused to end. And with Pauley still just a sophomore and Colasante and Fang having a year of play in them, they’re not done yet — and are promising to return to the mound next year, stronger than ever.

“The team’s going to be a lot better next year,” Pauley said. “People are going to get stronger and faster, and the focus is going to be there. Because we know we can make it, and the confidence will be there.

“There’s not going to be people that are going to doubt that we can go the distance,” he added.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.

—Staff writer Saketh Sundar can be reached at saketh.sundar@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @saketh_sundar.