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Baseball drops series to Harvard, earns dramatic walk-off win

Rookies DJ Dillehay ’26, Mika Petersen ’26 continue standout seasons

<p>The Bears will host Dartmouth, whose team is yet to win an Ivy League matchup, for a three-game set this weekend.</p><p>Courtesy of Brown Athletics</p>

The Bears will host Dartmouth, whose team is yet to win an Ivy League matchup, for a three-game set this weekend.

Courtesy of Brown Athletics

The baseball team (8-23, 5-10 Ivy) lost two out of three games in a home series against Harvard (14-21, 10-5 Ivy) this week, falling to five games back of a spot in the Ivy League playoff tournament with six games to go in the season. The Bears split a double-header on Saturday and fell on Tuesday afternoon in a series finale, which was originally scheduled for Sunday but was postponed due to rain.

The Bears’ sole victory came in dramatic walk-off fashion in the backend of Saturday’s doubleheader. Trailing 3-1 entering the bottom of the ninth inning, Bruno mounted a rally, with center fielder Derian Morphew ’23 singling home Jared Johnson ’25 to cut the deficit to one. With two outs and the bases loaded, shortstop DJ Dillehay ’26 — who has displayed a proclivity for late-game heroics before — knocked a 1-2 offering from Crimson pitcher Sean Matson up the middle, bringing home Ray Sass ’23 and Nathan Brasher ’25 to give the Bears their first walk-off win of the season.

“I had struggled the whole day. I was 1-7 (across the two games) going into the last at-bat. I really just needed something to go my way,” Dillehay said. “I hit the ball, saw it get through and I was very excited.”

Dillehay was one of two rookies who shone in the series, with designated hitter Mika Petersen ’26 going 6-for-12 and extending his hitting streak to 18 games. Two of those six hits came on bunts.

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“I use the bunt quite a bit,” Petersen said. “It’s something that I can rely on every game. I really just want to lean in to what my strengths are, so that’s been a large part (of) the streak.”

Petersen and Dillehay have batted second and third in the lineup, respectively, in each of the team’s past ten games.

“They’re not playing like freshmen anymore, that’s for sure,” said Head Coach Grant Achilles. “I think that’s been the case for a while now. It’s good to see the confidence that they’re showing every time they go out there.”

“I definitely feel a lot more comfortable now than I did in my first couple weekends when we were playing down south,” Petersen said.

Brown’s two losses against Harvard both came by final scores of 4-1. The Bears made five errors across the two games, giving Harvard an unearned run in each. Catcher Jacob Burley ’23 was responsible for the team’s only RBI on Saturday morning. On Tuesday, with Matson back on the mound as a starter, Dillehay once again lined an RBI single up the middle to give the Bears an early 1-0 lead. But by the fourth inning, Harvard crept back to take a 2-1 lead, where the score held until the Crimson tacked on two more in the top of the ninth.

“That game could have gone either way for 8 1/2 innings,” Achilles said following Tuesday’s game. “Just really proud of the effort and … the way we battled today.”

Bruno’s starting pitchers were solid all around, stepping up after surrendering eleven earned runs in eight total innings last weekend against Penn. Paxton Meyers ’24 and Santhosh Gottam ’25 each turned in quality starts on Saturday, with Meyers tossing six innings of three-run, four-hit ball in the morning and Gottam giving up just two runs in six innings in the afternoon. Dylan Reid ’26 impressed on Tuesday, making his first start of Ivy play and allowing one earned run in five innings.

Meanwhile, the Bears’ bullpen was stellar, with Christian Keel ’26, Jack Seppings ’25 and Bobby Olsen ’23 combining to allow just three runs across ten innings of work.

“Our pitching did great this weekend,” Achilles said. Harvard is “a good offensive team. The way that we were able to attack and limit extra baserunners forced them to earn their way through it.”

The Bears have six games left of Ivy play to make a run at earning one of the top four spots in the conference standings, which would qualify them for the league playoff tournament. They will next host Dartmouth, who have yet to win an Ivy League matchup, for a three-game set this coming weekend before concluding their season on the road against Princeton the following weekend. All games can be streamed on ESPN+.

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“We’re gonna treat every day as an opportunity to gain ground in the standings one pitch at a time,” Achilles said. “Competitive at-bats, competitive innings from the pitchers, give ourselves every opportunity to close the regular season strong.”

“We’re definitely bouncing back,” Dillehay said. “Hopefully a lot of wins” are in store for the team.

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Linus Lawrence

Linus is a sports editor from New York City. He is a junior concentrating in English, and when he's out of The Herald office you can find him rooting for the Mets, watching Star Wars or listening to The Beach Boys.



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