Athlete of the Week: Tiffany Whitton '03

Any spectator wanting to congratulate Tiffany Whitton following her walk-off grand slam on Saturday had to take a number. Among them was past teammate and classmate Monica Montijo, who had to hug Whitton to convince herself that the junior tri-captain was real.

Unreal performances have always characterized Tiffany Whitton. Whitton, her grand slam and the Harvard rally that preceded it all seemed too good to be true.

One inning before the comeback, Whitton had blown a Harvard lead on the mound to fall behind 4-2 against Princeton in a must-win game. She had a chance to redeem herself at the plate in the bottom of the sixth, but she flied out to left as the Crimson went down in order. For Whitton to get another shot at the plate, four teammates needed to reach base in the seventh. And that’s exactly what happened.

But even with the at-bat, the bases loaded, two outs, and a one-run deficit, redemption wouldn’t come easy. She had to face a fresh Princeton pitcher in Wendy Bingham and a season’s worth of pressure was on her shoulders. Grand slams—especially the kind that are crushed so hard that they leave the park almost instantly—are the stuff of little league fantasies and sports movies. But such an ending was within Whitton’s reach.

Whitton’s clutch hitting in Saturday’s 7-4 victory, certainly one of the most dramatic in the history of the Ivy League, was no one-time occurrence. She presently holds an unreal RBI-to-hit ratio with 39 RBI and 39 hits this season.

It’s only mid-April and she has already tied the school single-season home run record. Because of injuries during her freshman year, she’s only played about two full seasons’ worth of softball, yet she’s just one back of the school career home run record.

A Harvard player has never ledthe nation in RBI per game, but Whitton is doing just that right now. Her three-homer, five-RBI effort against Penn on Sunday gave her 1.39 RBI per game through 28 games, pushing her ahead of Arizona’s Leneah Manuma (59 RBI, 43 games, 1.37 per game) and Washington’s Jaime Clark (60 RBI, 47 games, 1.28 per game).

As good as Whitton is, even she has room for improvement. After five games this season, at which point Whitton was hitting above .500, Harvard Coach Jenny Allard noted that she was consistently letting good pitches go by.

“Yup, she’s hitting over .500 right now and she’s still making mistakes,” Allard said. “I know. It’s frightening.”

Whitton’s average has since dipped to a mere .419 while Harvard has posted a 21-7 record. The team she leads is now a win away from matching its victory total for all of last season.

While everything about Whitton’s season may seem unreal, Harvard softball can be thankful that her presence is very much a reality.