Harvard and BC To Meet at Fenway for Beanpot Title

Photo Courtesy of Harvard Athletic Communications.

What: 22nd Annual Baseball Beanpot Championship
When: Tuesday, April 26th at 7 p.m.
Where: Fenway Park, Boston, MA
Coverage: Beginning at 6:45 p.m. on 95.3 FM WHRB and WHRB.org with Bryan Dunmire (play by play), Brendan Roche and Charlie Hobbes (color commentary)

The Teams
Harvard (9-31, 5-11 Ivy): It's been a tough year for Harvard baseball to say the least. The Crimson started with a nine-game losing streak and came out of an arduous road trip of 1 home game in the first 22 of the season well below .500. The Ivy League has gone little better with Harvard 5 games out behind Red Rolfe division leading Dartmouth thanks to a 5-11 mark that places the Crimson squarely at the bottom of the Ancient Eight. With only four games remaining in conference play, an Ivy title is already out of grasp, but Harvard can still be champions with a win at America's Most Beloved Ballpark.
Boston College (14-24, 6-14 ACC): After two wins in Caravelle Resort Tournament to open the season, the Eagles fell somewhat flat, going 4-7 in the state of Florida to round out non-conference play (4-8 if you count a 6-0 shutout at the hands of the split-squad Red Sox, though that hardly seems fair to count). BC had some success as they headed back to New England, but a loss at Dartmouth started a streak where BC has only one once in their last ten tries. That one win came in the Beanpot though and the Eagles will hope that the Beanpot magic that's been at Chestnut Hill all year will snap them out of their current four game snide. At 7.5 games back with 9 conference games remaining, ACC hopes are still technically alive, but it looks like the only way BC can earn a championship this year is for the final leg of the Beanpot Triple Crown.

How They Got Here
Harvard took a no-hitter into the sixth inning as three pitchers combined for a five-hit 1-0 shutout over Massachusetts. Despite outhitting the Minutemen by a count of 10-5, the Crimson could not get on the board until the ninth inning, when Danny Moskovits hit a one-out single to send home baserunner Jack Colton, who had gotten on with a walk and then advanced to second on a sac bunt. Andrew Hatch (2-0), of LSU and Harvard football lore, got credit for the win, going 3 innings with 3 Ks and 4 hits allowed in relief.
Earlier last Wednesday, Boston College saw nine different pitchers combine for 11 Ks and only one run allowed as the Eagles defeated Northeastern 6-1. Nate Bayuk (4-4) picked up the win with his inning in the 6th. After the Eagles (2nd inning) and Huskies (4th inning) traded a run, the Eagles exploded for 5 runs in the 6th to seal the win.

Last Wins in Beanpot
Harvard: 2005 (longest current drought of all 4 schools)
Boston College: 2010

Common Opponents
Common opponents were Bryant, Northeastern and Holy Cross. Harvard is 0-5 against common opponents and Boston College is 2-2.  Harvard has yet to play an ACC opponent this season while Boston College is 0-1 against Ivy teams.

BREAKING: Baseball Beanpot Moved

Due to forecast inclement weather, the Baseball Beanpot has been moved to Northeastern University from Lowell and times have changed for the games as well. Harvard will now begin the late game against Massachusetts at approximately 3:30 p.m. Because of the last minute nature of the change, it is unclear if we will have the broadcast on 95.3 FM due to conflicts with our regular programming. We are hoping to still be able to provide at least an Internet feed of the game. We will update this post as more information becomes available during the night.

UPDATE: We will be able to provide the game at 3:30 p.m. thanks to the graciousness of our classical music department. So tune in on 95.3FM and WHRB.org starting at 3:20 for the pregame show. 

Rebirth of a Blog

As you may have noticed if you’ve been following this blog, we haven’t updated it in over a year. Which is really rather odd considering we’ve been advertising it on the radio for the past year, so we’re changing things around. This blog is going to be making a comeback worth visiting as a source for Harvard Crimson news and analysis.

Since it’s been a long time, you may have forgotten who exactly we are as bloggers. We are the students from the radio station 95.3 FM WHRB in Cambridge, MA, an independently owned, student-run operation. WHRB stands for Harvard Radio Broadcasting, so as may be expected, the students on the air are Harvard students. Specifically, WHRB Sports is a department at the radio station, and we provide season long coverage of Harvard Crimson football and men’s hockey, as well as select women’s hockey, men’s and women’s basketball, and baseball games. WHRB is the radio station where you can find The Game, the annual men’s Beanpot, the women’s Beanpot, and the Baseball Beanpot.

As far as our plans for the blog, we’ll be discussing them when we all get to campus in about a week or so, but for now, it includes being a place that collects all the news for the various sports at Harvard, particularly men’s football and hockey. To that end, at least a few of us that contribute on-air will be contributing to the blog- I’ll eventually badger them into introducing themselves, at least briefly, on here. While we work on getting this blog back into running order, please enjoy some of our classic interviews that can be found on the right side of the page. Also, I’ll make a bigger announcement about this later, but you can also follow WHRB Sports on Twitter, and of course, on the air, on 95.3 FM in the Boston area, or online anywhere in the world at WHRB.org.

Thanks for sticking with us,

The WHRB Sports Dept.