Softball Shows Promise

Warm weather, no classes, nine o'clock games in the morning.

If you're a member of the Harvard women's softball team, those three things are the perfect prescription to finish off those winter blues.

After having practiced indoors since the beginning of February, the Crimson (6-5 overall, 0-0 Ivy) headed down to Shaqville (Orlando, Fla.) on March 24 for its first dose of outdoor action, and the results were very promising.

Harvard solidified its play over the course of the 11-game trip and won five of its last six games before returning to Cambridge Saturday. The Crimson had originally been scheduled to play in 14 games, but three were canceled due to bad weather.

No, the players weren't sad to see those games go.

"We were all exhausted," pitcher Rachel Salzman said. "Our season is so ridiculous, with so many games so often that [the trip] was good practice."

Indeed.

Harvard has to play eight games in a six-day stretch beginning tomorrow with a doubleheader at Bryant.

The Crimson has a twinbill at home against Boston University Thursday before it opens up the Ivy League season with doubleheaders at Brown (whom Harvard defeated, 4-3, on March 29 in a non-league game) and Yale this Saturday and Sunday.

Harvard was close in almost every single game--three of the losses were by one run in extra innings (6-5 to Youngstown State on March 24, 8-7 to Ohio on March 25 and 6-5 to St. Xavier on March 26) and one was by two runs (4-2 to Stetson on March 30).

To put those losses even more into perspective, a few of those teams had already played close to 30 games already, while Ohio received several top-25 votes.

"If anything, we learned that we are a totally different team from last year," said junior shortstop Amy Reinhard, who was named the Ivy League Player of the Week last week. "We are capable of producing runs, while we were a little shaky on offense [last year]."

It was against Stetson when the team came together. The 4-2 loss dropped Harvard's record to 3-5 at that point, but the Crimson got revenge in the second game of the doubleheader, registering a 5-1 victory.

A very positive sign was that several freshmen headed the comeback. Stetson scored the first run of the game, but rookie Jenny Franzese homered to tie the match at 1-1.

Clutch hits by freshmen Tasha Cupp and Kara Hartl put Harvard on top, and Cupp's solid pitching sealed the 5-1 win.

Harvard then swept two games this past Friday with a 5-3 victory over Drexel and a 15-1 demolition of Long Island University to end the trip.

"We really started coming together," Salzman said. "We eliminated some of the mistakes we had at the beginning of the week."

Harvard's defensive play improved over the week, while the offense proved to be the biggest strong point, as the team averaged just under six runs a game. In addition, pitchers Salzman, Cupp, Heather Brown and co-captains Liz Walker and Jana Meader had strong showings.

So the season has started, and for Harvard, the results early on are very good.

"We played really well," Reinhard said. "We started out even better than we had hoped."