CAMBRIDGE, MA. – Harvard University baseball at Stonehill College on Tuesday, April 16 at 3:30 p.m. (NEC Front Row) at Lou Gorman Field in Easton, Mass., as the Crimson is coming off a 2-1 win over Princeton this past weekend.
what you should Know
- The Crimson (8-20, 5-7 Ivy) take on the Skyhawks (10-18, 6-9 NEC), with Harvard winning four of its last six games, including a 3-1 mark in its last four contests. The Crimson is currently one game out of third place in the Ivy League standings.
- Harvard and Stonehill will meet for the second time on Tuesday. Last season, the Crimson dropped an 8-4 decision to the Skyhawks.
- The Purple won the series 2-1 over Princeton (April 13-14) after a 3-2 win in game one and a 14-2 win in game three. For the streak, Harvard’s pitching staff posted a 2.70 ERA, including a sub-2.00 ERA as a sophomore Kalan Fang (0.00 ERA, 7.0 IP, eight strikeouts), jr Sean Mattson (1.29 ERA, 7.0 IP, 12 strikeouts) and freshman year Truman Polley (1.69 ERA, 5.1 IP, six strikeouts).
- A margin of three runs or less has decided nine of Harvard’s 12 Ivy League games, including five one-run games.
- In Harvard’s first 12 Ivy League contests, the Crimson played on its home field at O’Donnell Field just once. Harvard played as the visiting team for three of its first four conference series. In the Crimson’s first home series, two of the contests were moved to Boston College due to field conditions at Harvard.
- Closing out The Baseball Beanpot, Harvard earned a 10-3 victory over Massachusetts (April 9) in the third-place game. Junior lefty Brian Dowling allowed just two runs over 6.0 innings in the start and sophomore season Jordan Kang scored four career goals.
- Senior fielder Ben Rounds has posted a .390 average, .492 OBP, five home runs, 21 RBI, 41 hits, 31 runs and 10 doubles on the season. He ranked first in the Ivy League in average (.404) and hits (41), second in OBP (.492), third in OPS (1.140), runs (31) and walks (20) and fourth in strikeouts ( .648) and doubles (10). In the NCAA, he is 65th average (.390) and 87th in OBP (.492). For the season, he recorded 12 multi-hit games. In Ivey’s career alone, he has hit .378 with 17 hits, 10 RBI, five doubles and a .472 OBP.
- Junior George Cooper hit .283 on the season with 32 hits, 16 RBI, 16 runs, four doubles and two triples. In Ivy play alone, he has posted a .345 average, 19 hits, nine RBIs, seven runs and a .379 OBP. For the season, he posted 11 multi-hit games and six multi-RBI games.
- Junior outfielder Matt Ghiberti batted .278 on the year with a .352 OBP and a 16-for-16 mark in stolen base attempts. He leads the Ivy League in stolen bases (16) and ranks 10thth in the NCAA in stolen bases per game (0.70). Ghiberti earned Ivy League Player of the Week honors after hitting .556 (5-for-9) with four runs, three doubles and a .636 OBP in the series at Penn State (March 8-10).
- Senior infielder Chris Snopek leads the team in home runs (six) and RBIs (26) on the year with a .236 average, 25 hits and 16 runs. Snopek ranks fourth in the Ivy League in RBI (26) and fifth in home runs (six). On the season, he has posted five multi-RBI games and seven multi-hit games. He went 5-for-13 with three runs and a home run in The Citadel series (March 2-3). Snopek went 3-for-5 with two homers and four RBIs in Game 2 at Western Carolina (March 16) and had a season-high five RBIs in back-to-back games against Brown (March 31) and Boston College (April 2).
- Junior Hunter William Lybrook has posted a .350 average with 21 hits, 13 RBI, 16 runs and a .406 OBP. In Ivey’s only game, he hit a .343 average with a .429 OBP, 12 hits and 12 runs. He went 2-for-3 with four RBI, three runs and a home run in game two against Western Carolina (March 16).
- Junior right-hander Sean Mattson has posted a 3.22 ERA with 53 strikeouts in 44.2 innings on the year. He ranked first in the Ivy League in ERA (3.22), second in strikeouts (53) and second in opponent batting average (.220). In Ivey’s lone game, he posted a 3.13 ERA with 31 strikeouts in 23.0 innings, ranking third in strikeouts (31) and fifth in ERA (3.13). Mattson recorded a career-high 12 strikeouts while allowing one run over 7.0 innings at Princeton (April 13). He earned Ivy League Pitcher of the Week on March 4 after pitching 6.1 scoreless innings with seven strikeouts at The Citadel (March 2).
- Sophomore right-hander Kalan Fang leads Ivy League in strikeouts (62) while ranking second in strikeouts (15), third in innings pitched (46.2), seventh in ERA (4.82) and seventh in opponent average (.241) . During Ivey’s stint alone, he posted a 2.05 ERA with 38 strikeouts in 26.1 innings, ranking first in the conference in strikeouts (38), third in ERA (2.05) and third in opponent average (.179). . In the NCAA, he is ranked 34thth in strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.64) and 49th in strikeouts per nine innings (11.96). Fang earned Ivy League Pitcher of the Week on April 1 after collecting a career-high 12 strikeouts in 7.0 innings in a win over Brown (March 30). He had 12 more hits in Cornell’s third game (April 7). Fang also contributed, hitting .345 (10-for-29) with five RBIs and a home run.
- Junior right-hander Cole Cleary has posted a 1.64 ERA with 11 strikeouts over 1.0 innings in Ivy League play. He earned his first collegiate save in Game 2 against Cornell (April 7) and picked up another career five-hit save against Princeton (April 13). Overall, he posted a 5.40 ERA with two saves and 15 strikeouts in 16.2 innings. Cleary ranks fifth in the conference in saves (two).
- As a team, Harvard ranks second in the Ivy League in opponent batting average (.265), third in ERA (7.23) and fourth in strikeouts (232) on the mound, while ranking third in hits (262) and stolen bases ( 37-of-43) and fourth in average (.268), runs (166), RBI (151) and hits (.391) at the plate.
- On the season, Harvard has posted double-digit scoring five times and double-digit scoring 14 times.
Next up
Harvard hosts Dartmouth in a three-game Ivy League series with a doubleheader on Saturday, April 20 beginning at 11:30 a.m. (ESPN+) and a single on Sunday, April 21 at noon (ESPN+).
