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.

So Now Then

One game back of Brown going into four this weekend with Dartmouth.

Brown plays Yale, a decent but underachieving team that needs to sweep Dartmouth to have a chance at the division championship.

Harvard plays Dartmouth, a bad team with no hope of winning the division, but a proud program that always makes these games difficult for its archrival, no matter how insignificant they may be.

Harvard presumably throws a fully-rested Perlman (my information is that he's fine, but was just unable to throw on 3 days) and Brad Unger in Hanover Saturday. Presumably, you throw Shawn Haviland in the early game Sunday, lest you risk saving him for a meaningless game. And then it's young Boomer Eadington to start a nine-inning game that could mean everything for this team, on a team with all kinds of bullpen question marks right now.

I still like Harvard's chances. Just take care of business.

Who was out there for the Yale games? Hit the comments.

Yale Games

Because the below post is comment-deficient somehow, here's a new one for the Yale games. Harvard won Game One behind ace Shawn Haviland's one-hit shutout, his finest performance of the year, 2-0. But Adam Cole, a surprise starter in Game Two, lost control after that and Harvard trails 6-0 with Jake Bruton on in relief.

Joe Walsh, All Class

I already mentioned the peculiar Beanpot fate of UMass, an apparent innocent victim of the Ivy League's decision to reschedule the Yale doubleheader on the day of the Beanpot. Well, cry for them no more:

While head coach Joe Walsh will usually opt for playing two games instead of one on any given day, this is one instance where that is not the case. Playing the Bulldogs on Wednesday means that Harvard will have to forgo its place in the annual Beanpot at Fenway Park.

Unable to play in the event, a disappointed Walsh prepared his team for a pivotal series against the Bulldogs instead. But he also did something out of the norm, setting in motion a plan that would allow Massachusetts its rightful place in the renowned ballpark. Walsh spent most of his Tuesday on the phone with the Red Sox organization, UMass and Holy Cross, proposing that the Crusaders be allowed to take Harvard’s place for the game.

How about that? Good job here by Coach Walsh, and good job by the Red Sox for allowing this to happen. Now we can only hope that whatever residual anger Harvard feels for missing the Beanpot, it takes out on Yale baseball on Wednesday.

Update: Jon Lehman of the Crimson savages Yale in this column.
Update 2: Joe Walsh is straight-up mad at Yale:

"We appreciated the fact that we're guests over there [Fenway]," said Walsh. "It's an honor to play over there.

"The Yale coach [John Stuper], he got to play in The Show, he was in the big leagues. I hope he hasn't forgotten what it means to the kids.

"That's not just a big league park -- that's Fenway."

Update 3: The comments on this post seem to have vanished in my updating: Sorry about this. There were two, generally expressing approval of what Walsh did. I'll try to figure out how to re-activate the comments here.

Dartmouth remains meaningful.

Harvard split its series with Brown this weekend, meaning at the very least that the Dartmouth series next weekend will be meaningful. The Ivy League has moved the makeup games from a week ago to Wednesday instead of Tuesday--more on that in a second--but regardless of what Brown does at Dartmouth and Harvard does against Yale at home, there will be meaningful Rolfe Division baseball next weekend. No matter how bad their team is this season, get ready for more of the brilliant young members of the Loudmouth Brigade.

This weekend saw another winning Max Perlman start, a costly and rare bad outing by Jake Bruton, another stout effort by Brad Unger (125 pitches), more Matt Vance power (the team's leader in slugging percentage) and more good stuff from Adam Cole, setup man. But anyone can read a boxscore. Were you there? Tell us what you saw in the comments.

Meanwhile, the Ivy League's decision to move the makeup games to Wednesday has cost Harvard a trip to Fenway Park to play UMass in the Beanpot consolation game. I wonder why the league made the switch--did someone lobby for to push so that the teams could have Saturday's starters able to go against league opposition on three days rest? [Update: Yep, it was Yale.] Does this mean we'll have Perlman and Haviland on Wednesday--if so, I imagine we'd flip the rotation next weekend and have Boomer and Unger Saturday and Perlman and Haviland on three days once again on Sunday. Or, Max Warren gets involved. I can imagine most coaches wanting to avoid getting to their fifth or sixth starters at this point in the season--especially Brown, whom I suspect doesn't have anyone quite as steady as Warren waiting in the wings.
Still, Fenway day has always been one of my favorite days of the year as a follower of Crimson baseball, and it's too bad the players don't get to experience it this year (they've already lost out on a first-round game due to Fenway's increasing reluctance to make the park available for the Beanpot at all). Although I've gotta say, as unfortunate as this is for Harvard, it's gotta be even worse for UMass.
Finally, a hearty congratulations to Joe Walsh for winning his 500th career game. More on this in a future post.

So, about this rain...

Beanpot's been moved to Wednesday. Yale may be as late as next Monday, creating a three-day, six-game weekend. Stay tuned...

Today's Games

...have been postponed, according to the online schedule (and common sense). I'm not sure whether they'll be able to get them in for Monday, since it's still supposed to rain that morning and this storm sounds vicious enough to do a number on the field.

Harvard sweeps Yale: Open thread

Perlman and Haviland shut down the Bulldogs. Were you there? Add some color in the comments.