Boston College Baseball Midweek Recap - Beanpot First Round: Harvard

There will be no four-peat for the Boston College baseball team in the annual Beanpot Tournament, as the Eagles dropped a disappointing contest to the visiting Harvard Crimson, 7-4, in 11 innings on Wednesday night at the Brighton Stadium.

Things got off to a rough start for the home team, as Harvard scored three runs in the first inning off BC starter Matt Gill and held on to that 3-0 advantage until the bottom of the sixth, when Boston College pushed a run across the plate on a bases-loaded walk. The Eagles would tie the game at three in the next inning on a ground out and an error. Harvard would retake the lead in the eighth, plating a single run to make the score 4-3 in favor of the visitors. However, BC responded and tied the game in the bottom of the ninth, on a Scott Braren sacrifice fly, and even placed placed the winning run on second base, but could not capitalize on the opportunity, pushing the game into extras. After trading zeros in the tenth, the Crimson used a walk, hit by pitch, and a subsequent home run to grab a 7-4 lead that the Eagles could not overcome.

Sophomore Jake Goodreau earned the first start of his career behind the plate on Wednesday night and made the most of the opportunity, going 1 for 3 with a double, and RBI, and two walks.

Some Thoughts:

There is no way around this one. That was as disappointing a performance as they come. Beyond losing in the first round of the Beanpot and not getting a chance to compete for a fourth straight title, Boston College should not lose midweek games at home to Harvard. Don’t get me wrong, the Crimson played well, lighting up BC’s staff for 16 hits on the evening, and they may be a competitive team in the Ivy League, but if BC wants to compete for berths in the NCAA Tournament, they cannot lose games like these. They just can’t. Especially not in this fashion, where they’re struggling to score runs while simultaneously giving up hit after hit at the plate. I think what makes the outcome of this game so frustrating for me, as I’m sure it does for coach Gambino and the players, is the fact that we’ve seen this team play extraordinarily well this season — and not that long ago, either. They had success on the mound and at the plate this season against much, much better competition than they saw tonight and looked like a team ready to take the next step and get back to a Super Regional. But since that time, things have cooled off and, surprisingly, it hasn’t been in conference play where the Eagles have struggled (minus last week at Clemson). It’s been during the midweek when they’ve faced opponents far less talented than their conference foes. Whatever it is they need to do to get back to where they were, they need to find that from a few weeks back and repeat those performances this weekend against Pitt to get their season back on track.