"That's something [Assistant Coach] Chip Forrest has been working on all week with the team-getting runners to take the extra base," Walsh said. "We've got guys looking for it every time they round first, and it makes us more aggressive base runners. You might not see it in things like stolen bases, but it shows up in plays like that."

Every inning showcased some example of heads up baseball. In the top of the seventh, junior reliever Derek Lennon spelled classmate Mike Madden with men on first and second and no outs in a 6-6 tie.

Walsh called for "66," one in a suite of plays the Crimson runs with runners on base in potential bunting situations.

Freshman shortstop Mark Mager, who had been holding Yale designated hitter Tony Coyne on second, sprinted away from the bag toward third base as Lennon hit his windup, freezing Coyne. Second baseman Faiz Shakir slipped in behind Coyne, and Lennon wheeled around and promptly picked him off second.

It was a classic example of Crimson misdirection, and it made Coyne, the defending Ivy League Player of the Year, look positively silly.

In addition, the Crimson was able to start and finish big innings all weekend, using smart execution of fundamental plays to turn stranded runners into runs.

In the top of the first, Harvard put rookie starter Craig Breslow in an early hole, scratching two runs on two hits and an error.

With one out, Mager waited out Breslow, working a walk, then harassed Breslow into an errant pickoff throw and moved over to third. Keck tripled him home with yet another opposite-field base hit, and scored himself when Huling blooped a Texas Leaguer over the third-base bag.

And in the third, Harvard used three singles, from captain Hal Carey, Binkowski and Keck, as well as two stolen bases and a wild pitch, to set up Huling's two-out, two-run double and a 5-3 lead.

Both rallies did a fine job of mixing spray hitting with attentive base running, bothersome tactics and capitalizing on Bulldog miscues. That's been typical of the new-look Crimson, which has scraped together 56 runs in its last five games by prolonging rallies and burying every kind of mistake it's lucky enough to get, or smart enough to generate.

But smart isn't shocking. These are Harvard students, right?