Both teams displayed strong pitching in the first game, but the Crimson struck gold first.

Following a single up the middle from senior shortstop Sean O’Hara in the second inning, junior Marcus Way slammed a homer over the right-field fence. The two-run home run put Harvard on top, 2-0.

The next time the batting order came around, the O’Hara-Way combination struck again. With O’Hara on base, Way hit a double to left-center field that sent his teammate home. Way’s clutch hit and O’Hara’s score in the fourth inning helped the Crimson move ahead even further, 3-0.

Senior Eric “Boomer” Eadington pitched Harvard through the next couple innings, striking out two batters and allowing no runs.

But in the seventh inning, the Tigers attacked. They got a rally going and ended up scoring five runs, the last two of which were a result of a dropped fly ball.

“You have to give them credit,” Keuper said. “They forced us to make good pitches and they capitalized on our mistakes.”

Harvard tried to make a comeback, but the pitching of Princeton’s Bowman, who pitched eight strikes in 11 pitches during the bottom of the ninth, was too strong.

“Bowman came out after they scored five runs and just up-ed it a notch,“ Walsh said.

The Crimson’s losses were hard-fought battles and rough ones to lose, but the players still stay optimistic.

“We can take out of the games that sometimes losing is a good thing,” Keuper said. “It’s been a tough season so far, but I think we can bounce back. I mean, there are a lot of positives: timely hitting, timely pitching. We just need to string them together, and I think we’ve shown that we can do that to ourselves.”