Bruins to confront Harvard Crimson

Thursday, 5/22/97 Bruins to confront Harvard Crimson BASEBALL:
UCLA enters playoffs seemingly with many advantages

By Kristina Wilcox Daily Bruin Senior Staff On Monday, the UCLA
baseball team found out that it would be facing an Ivy League
school in the first round of the playoffs. Heavily favored and
top-seeded UCLA will be going up against Harvard, in a game that
looks strikingly similar to the UCLA basketball team’s matchup with
Princeton over a year ago. With memories of that upsetting loss
floating in the minds of Bruin faithful, the fourth-ranked UCLA
baseball team takes on the sixth-seeded Harvard regiment in the
first game of the Midwest Regionals in Stillwater, Okla. this
morning. Numbers-wise, the Bruins (40-18-1) clearly look like the
dominant squad in this matchup, with the Ivy champion Crimson
(32-14) coming across as a little league team in comparison. For
instance, UCLA broke a school and Pac-10 record for home runs with
126. Harvard boasts a grand total of 27 home runs. Bruin shortstop
Troy Glaus has 31 home runs himself. On the pitching mound, there
is also a lopsided look to the "competition." Harvard head coach
Joe Walsh’s top pitchers have six wins apiece. Bruin left-handers
Jim Parque and Tom Jacquez boast 12-2 and 9-3 records,
respectively. The UCLA team also surpasses Harvard in terms of
all-league selections. A school-record seven Bruins were selected
for the All-Pac-10 first team (left fielder Jon Heinrichs, right
fielder Eric Byrnes, Glaus, center fielder Eric Valent, first
baseman Peter Zamora, Parque and Jacquez). Three Harvard teammates
received first-team honors in the much less competitive Ivy League.
But both teams can boast similar feats in their individual leagues
and record books. Crimson center fielder Brian Ralph, a recruit out
of Dana Hills High School in Laguna Niguel, was named Ivy League
Player of the Year. Glaus earned the title of Pac-10 Player of the
Year recently. Both of these players lead their team in home runs.
Walsh and UCLA head coach Gary Adams each have players chasing
single-season school records in hits and runs batted in. It’s
clear, however, that UCLA has the upper hand in today’s meeting.
But so did the basketball team two seasons ago. GENEVIEVE
LIANG/Daily Bruin John Heinrichs provided the Bruins with
surprising power.