Softball Leads Off With Unprecedented 12-4 Start

A 12-4 start is uncharted territory for the Harvard softball team, but the Crimson is perfectly comfortable being there.

Over spring break, the Crimson won seven of 11 games, including three of five at Georgia Tech’s Buzz Classic tournament. Harvard lost twice in heart-wrenching fashion at Big East power Villanova, before winning a pair over struggling Lafayette and sweeping its home-opening doubleheader against Maine last weekend. As far as anyone on the team can remember, 12-4 is the best mark Harvard’s ever had coming out of spring break.

It’s not hard to see why starting so strong is so difficult for Harvard softball. Every season while other teams are opening in February, Harvard is still practicing indoors. The Crimson’s opponents so far this year had played 11 more games than Harvard on average. But the current squad has made up for that disadvantage better than any team before it, including the Ivy title-winning Harvard teams from the last two years that were 6-15 and 7-13 coming out of break.

The absence of nationally ranked west-coast teams from this year’s schedule can account for some of this year’s record improvement, but not all of it. So while the schedule hasn’t gotten tougher this year, the team itself has.

That toughness starts at the top with junior tri-captain and all-around leader Tiffany Whitton. Whitton—a .441 hitter with five home runs and 21 RBI thus far—not only leads the team in almost every offensive category, she also leads the pitching staff in ERA and has been perfect in the field.

Two other big reasons for Harvard’s hot start are pitching depth—the team regularly rotates five arms, up from three last year—and the immediate impact of the freshmen, most notably catcher Laura Miller and outfielder Lauren Stefanchik.

Miller, the Crimson’s third-best hitter at .351, has played with a veteran’s intensity at a position where Harvard had no returning players. Stefanchik, the Crimson’s second-best hitter at .407, has revolutionized Harvard’s aggression on the basepaths with her speed.

The improvement bodes well for a Crimson team that looks to keep pace with the ever-rising competition in the Ivies.

To maintain the bliss of its 12-4 start, Harvard will have to translate the lessons learned from those games into Ivy wins. Its first chance to do that—after three more non-league games this week—will be at Brown on Saturday.

Cooking Lobster

Whitton’s numbers alone don’t tell the whole story about her value to the team. She has been a consistent clutch performer in the past, and she lived up to that billing again in Saturday’s doubleheader sweep of Maine (12-16).

Whitton clubbed a walk-off home run to win the first game, 1-0, and hit a grand slam to pace a 7-3 rout in the second.

In the opener, Harvard senior pitcher Suzanne Guy and Maine hurler Jennifer Merchant kept the game scoreless until Whitton’s leadoff round-tripper in the bottom of seventh.

Whitton’s anticipation of a Merchant changeup was the difference.

“I knew [the changeup] would come at some point,” Whitton said. “She had been throwing it to everybody else, and I hadn’t seen it yet. I figured it would make an appearance at some time.”

When the pitch came, Whitton took advantage, lofting the ball into the pines that line the right-field fence.

“I tried to wait on it, and it just worked out that I connected, so it was nice,” Whitton said.

Before Whitton’s home run, Merchant had limited Harvard to just three baserunners.

“Their pitcher threw a lot of off-speed stuff which caught us off-balance. We just hung in there until we put a run across,” Harvard Coach Jenny Allard said. “Tiffany came up with a very clutch hit.”

Guy allowed seven Maine batters to reach in the game, but she and the error-free Harvard defense didn’t let any of them cross the plate.

Sophomore Kara Brotemarkle was as dominant as Guy in game two, giving up just two hits in four innings.

Brotemarkle had the luxury of pitching with a lead. The Crimson scored two in the first as Stefanchik walked and stole second to lead off, and Whitton doubled her home. Sophomore infielder Sara Williamson then drove Whitton in with a single.

Freshman Cecily Gordon doubled home sophomore Breanne Cooley to up the score to 3-0, and Whitton’s grand slam in the fourth all but iced the game.

With the seven-run lead, freshman pitcher Lauren Tanner entered the game for Harvard. Maine’s Nicole Taylor rudely greeted her with a home run. Tanner gave up two more runs before closing out the game.

Tanner, the all-time winningest pitcher in Texas high school history, has been going through the typical adjustment to the additional three feet of distance to home plate in the college game. A rout like Saturday’s gave her another opportunity to figure herself out.

“She needs experience—that’s all,” Allard said.

Stefanchik led Harvard with three stolen bases in the second game. She has 10 stolen bases in 11 attempts already this year. As a team, the Crimson has 29 steals in 33 attempts. In all of last year, Harvard stole just 15 bases on 26 tries.

No Love in Philadelphia

Harvard suffered its two most frustrating losses of the season against Villanova (14-2) on Mar. 27 before bouncing back with two wins against hapless Lafayette (1-8) the next day.

The Crimson was just one strike away from pulling off its most impressive win of the season in its first game against Villanova, but fell 5-3.

Harvard’s 2-1 seventh-inning lead disappeared when a Brotemarkle wild pitch got past Miller, and a Wildcat runner came home from third to tie the game at two.

The Crimson took the lead again in the eighth when Whitton drove in the automatic baserunner from second—an implementation of international tiebreaker rules.

But Harvard couldn’t hold the 3-2 lead as the Wildcats singled in their free baserunner to tie the game and won it with a two-run homer.

The ending ruined an outstanding pitching performance by Brotemarkle, who kept the Wildcats scoreless for the first 5.2 innings and retired 10 in a row at one point.

“There are a few games that we lost that we learned lessons from, where we felt that we had the game,” Allard said, referring to the loss to Villanova.

Harvard’s bid to bounce back in the nightcap against Villanova was cut short as the game was called after five innings with the Wildcats up 2-0. The Crimson only managed one hit off the Villanova starter. Guy was the tough-luck loser.

A trip one hour up north to Easton gave Harvard a welcome opportunity to end its losing skid against Lafayette, a struggling Patriot League team.

Brotemarkle showed no lingering effects from her spoiled effort at Villanova with a complete-game, 11 strikeout shutout in Harvard’s 4-0 win in game one.

The Crimson went ahead in the third by scoring a run off a single from freshman Lauren Bettinelli, a Stefanchik bunt and a wild pitch. A two-run homer by tri-captain Sarah Koppel and a solo shot by Cooley in the fifth gave Harvard the insurance.

Harvard showed no mercy in the second game as it turned a 3-1 lead into a 12-1 rout with a nine-run fifth inning. Cooley and Whitton each hit three-run homers to spur the rally.

Freshman Beth Sabin gave up one run in three innings to earn the win, and Guy and Tanner each pitched shutout innings for the Crimson.

Harvard had originally scheduled a doubleheader at Lehigh on Mar. 26 as well, but the games were cancelled.

Buzz Classic

Harvard may not have matched last year’s unprecedented second-place finish at the 25-team Buzz Classic, but it still met its goal of starting strong against the competitive tournament field.

Harvard went 3-1 in the round-robin portion of the tournament with a convincing 5-2 win over Mercer, a tough 5-2 loss to host Georgia Tech, a late come-from-behind 5-3 win over Tennessee Tech and a wild 18-11 blowout of Charleston Southern.

Harvard was one of 12 teams to earn the right to advance to bracket play, but the Crimson was knocked out by Maryland in the first round with a 5-2 defeat.

Harvard led against both Georgia Tech and Maryland, but couldn’t extend its lead in either contest.

“In both games [against the ACC opponents] we had the lead and we kind of just sat on those runs,” said Cooley, who led Harvard with seven hits in the tournament.

The 3-1 round-robin record was still Harvard’s best-ever mark at the tournament. Last year, the Crimson went 2-2 and just snuck into the 12-team bracket before winning three straight. Two years ago, Harvard didn’t win any of its four Buzz games.

“Even though we didn’t come in second, it was still a much better start than last year, by far,” said Williamson, who led Harvard in the rout of Charleston Southern with four hits.

The victory over Mercer (14-18), a team that beat Harvard twice in three meetings last year, was the clearest sign of improvement.

The Crimson went up 3-0 in the fifth inning, fought off a Mercer rally to stay ahead 3-2 in the bottom of the fifth and then added insurance runs in the sixth and seventh for the victory.

Whitton went the distance for the victory on the mound, surrendering just five hits and striking out 10, and she helped her own cause with an RBI.

Koppel, Miller, and sophomore shortstop Rachel Goldberg each hit solo home runs to pace the offense.

In its next game against Georgia Tech, the Crimson took a 2-0 lead with runs in the second and third innings, but couldn’t produce any more as the Yellow Jackets (24-8) came back with a run in the fourth off Guy and three in the fifth off Brotemarkle.

Harvard wasn’t doing much better against its third opponent, Tennessee Tech (12-15), until the bottom of the sixth. The Crimson trailed 4-1, its only run coming in the first when Williamson singled home Stefanchik.

But Stefanchik led off a Crimson comeback rally in the sixth. She reached on an error and Whitton walked to give the Crimson runners at first and second with two outs. Miller followed up by dropping a clutch hit into right field, leading to two more Harvard runs.

Koppel finished off the comeback with a two-run homer.

Harvard had no problem finding offense in the 18-11 victory over Charleston Southern (10-29). The game was closer than the final score indicated as Harvard trailed 6-4 after three innings and 7-6 after four, but 12 Crimson runs in the last three innings were more than enough to win the game.

Defensively, there wasn’t a whole lot to be happy about as the Crimson made four errors, and Tanner and Sabin combined to give up six home runs for the game.

Charleston Southern, a team with a short roster of just 13 players, left one pitcher in to get pounded for all 18 runs. Harvard, on the other hand, used nearly every one of its healthy position players in the victory.

“That’s amazing to be able to use that many players and to have them ready any second to go in and do their job,” Williamson said.

Shortly after the Charleston game, Harvard learned that its first bracket opponent would be Maryland (14-9), another ACC school.

Harvard started strong as it did against Georgia Tech and took a 1-0 lead in the top of fifth.

Brotemarkle shut down the Terrapins for the first four innings, but Maryland rallied for four in the fifth and didn’t look back, eliminating Harvard from the tournament

“We played really hard, but with good teams like that, you just can’t sit on one run,” Cooley said.

Harvard may not have advanced as far in the Buzz Classic this year, but it once again proved that it could compete with ACC-caliber competition and gained valuable seasoning for future.