That's that.

A loss in Game One doomed any shot the Crimson had, although Brown took the one game they needed to sew things up in Providence as well. Harvard's season will end with its non-league game against Northeastern on Tuesday.

Congratulations to Brown and Penn (Princeton nearly came all the way back to force a divisional playoff only to falter in 12 innings at Cornell). This is the first time in quite a few years that the Ivy League championship series will happen with neither Harvard or Princeton involved, but it's arguably overdue. Brown has fielded too many fierce lineups over the years not to break through at some point.

It's worth realizing now that we came within a hair's breadth of repeating as division champions despite huge losses in last year's seniors. That's a testament to the coaching staff and to the team leadership, particularly the seniors and Brendan Byrne. He'll be missed next year. Jake Bruton had a breakout season. Jay Brown should be commended for his body of work over the length of his career at Harvard (and what will Harvard baseball be without at least one Jason Brown on the roster?). Drew Casey, as much as I've lamented his bat here, proved to be one of the more potent bats in the games that counted. A hearty thanks and farewell to Justin Roth and Jake Levine as well.

What's left going forward? Arguably the best rotation in the Ivy League in 2008, for starters, with Haviland, Perlman and Unger back for more. Boomer Eadington and Adam Cole would seem to have an interesting offseason ahead of them, and an interesting battle come next fall and spring. Matt Vance has become an even more complete package--speed, power, versatility. Steffan Wilson will presumably be back, Matt Rogers took a big step, Tom Stack-Babich bounced back in a big way, Jeff Stoekel turned out to be a fine starter, and hopefully an Andrew Prince without hamstring trouble will be a very effective heart-of-the-order presence.

More on this later. There will be more posts in the days and weeks to come, and then at some point I'll sit down and figure out what to do next year.