Whitton Named Regional All-American

Though the NCAA softball Division I regionals began yesterday without the presence of Harvard junior tri-captain Tiffany Whitton, whose team’s season ended on Sunday, her achievements were not forgotten.

Whitton was the lone Ivy representative named to the NFCA Division I All-Northeast Region First Team, announced on Wednesday. It was the third major honor Whitton had earned in the past week to go along with Ivy Player of the Year and ECAC Championship MVP. Whitton is now eligible for national All-American honors, which will be announced on May 22.

Whitton concluded arguably the greatest offensive season in Harvard softball history by batting 9-for-12 to lead the program to its first ECAC title. She did this despite fracturing a finger sliding back to second base during the tournament opener against Columbia. The injury, which made her life more difficult during the end of reading period, had no ill effect on her softball.

She finished the year batting .457 with 13 home runs and 49 RBI in 40 games. She made a run at the national statistics unlike any Crimson player before her, finishing sixth in the nation in batting average, fourth in home runs per game and first in RBI per game.

The Harvard team she captained finished ranked third in the Northeast Region, 15th in the nation in runs scored per game and 17th in win percentage. The 31-10 record gave Harvard its best win percentage in school history.

Five Ivy Players were named to the All-Northeast Region Second Team, three of them coming from Ivy champion Princeton. The Tigers lost to Minnesota, 2-1, yesterday in their first NCAA appearance in six years. They were, however, the first Ivy team to avoid losing their NCAA opener by a mercy-rule margin since Brown in 1997.

Princeton will play again today at 3:30 in the loser’s bracket of the double-elimination regional tournament.