Advertisement

Batsmen Chill Dartmouth, Sweep Twinbill

Five Runs in First And Baloff's Sliders Notch Nightcap Win

It was Dartmouth's type of weather, but ultimately Harvard's day, as the batsmen notched their first two Eastern League wins of the year with a 4-2, 9-2 sweep of Saturday's gale-swept doubleheader with the Woodsmen.

Larry Brown's fourth straight complete game and sixth straight victory of the season was the big word in the first game, a triumph which came neither easily nor normally, despite his nine strikeouts.

The Crimson's 1-2 win came basically at the hands of Boston Strangler-type fielding by Dartmouth, who butchered three ground balls and allowed all four runs to score unearned in the fourth inning.

Dartmouth took the lead 1-0 in the first on shortstop Gary Masse's home run, and things were beginning to look a lot like the B.C. game last Wednesday, until the fourth when Harvard exploded for two of its paltry total of four hits, and all of its runs.

It seemed like a rally would be killed after the Crimson had bases loaded and no outs but could not score because of fielder's choice plays at the plate on Jim Peccerillo and Paul Halas.

Advertisement

The bags were still full, but now there were two outs as third baseman Rick Pearce blooped a short pop up in front of first base. Dartmouth's Brad Blair couldn't come up with the glove save, and what's more missed on his attempt to tag Pearce, thus permitting the first Harvard run to score.

Charlie Santos-Buch then walked in Burke St. John with the second run, before Mike Stenhouse gave the whole thing some semblance of offense by driving in the last two with a solid single to right. By the end of the twinbill Stenhouse had gone three-for-six and driven in five runs.

The afternoon-cap of the doubleheader was definitely the more pleasant affair of the two. The sun sort of came out of the clouds, Harvard bats finally made some noise above the Mason-Dixon line, and the Woodsmen axed three more grounders to embarrass themselves further.

Steve Baloff, the lanky Californian with the oh-so-nasty slider, won his first game up North and raised his overall record to 3-0 with a strong four-hit, eight-strikeout outing in six and two-thirds innings. Lefty Billy Bradshaw came on in the seventh to hurl the last out of the game.

By the time Baloff had given up Dart-mouth's only two runs of the game in the fourth (one on a homer by Mike Durham), Harvard already led 9-0 by virtue of five runs in the first, one in the second and three in the third. And guess what, only one was unearned.

The Crimson pounced on starter Matt Cairone very early. Rick Pearce singled to right to lead off the first, was pushed over to third by Santos-Buch's double to right, and they were both driven in by a Stenhouse seven-iron fade double down the left field line.

With one out Jim Peccerillo walked, Halas's single brought home Stenhouse, and then St. John's safety scored those two to make it 5-0.

Pearce walked to lead off the second, stole second and then came in on a Stenhouse rbi-special for Harvard's sixth run. In the third rbi's by Steve Joyce and Santos-Buch complemented a timely Dartmouth error to give the Crimson runs number seven, eight and nine.

Recommended Articles

Advertisement