Softball Hopes to Host ECACs

The Harvard softball team may have had its last regularly scheduled game against Boston College rained out yesterday, but its season is likely far from over.

Harvard Coach Jenny Allard has submitted a declaration to host the ECAC softball championships on the weekend of May 11-12. As the No. 3 team in the northeast region, the Crimson is certain to make the tournament and a favorite to host it.

The ECAC tournament typically consists of four strong east coast teams that don’t make NCAAs. Harvard’s NCAA hopes ended with a loss to Cornell on April 21 that guaranteed a second-place finish behind Princeton, but the Crimson still posted the 18th best win percentage in the nation this year—also the best season win percentage in school history—with a 28-9 record.

“It’s hard because a lot of people will [think] because we didn’t we win an Ivy championship that this wasn’t a successful season, but this was a very successful season,” said junior tri-captain Tiffany Whitton.

Harvard is also the nation’s 14th-highest scoring team, led by Whitton who herself ranks No. 15 in the nation in batting average, No. 5 in home runs per game and No. 1 in RBI.

“It’s an honor,” Whitton said of her national leader status. “I never expected it.”

Of the four other teams that have declared for ECACs, three of them—Cornell, Dartmouth and Columbia—are teams that finished behind the Crimson in the Ivy standings. Albany, an American East school, also declared.

An unusual characteristic of this year’s ECAC tournament is that its dates conflict with many conference tournaments. This will likely prevent Albany and defending ECAC champion East Carolina, who are both in position to qualify for their conference tournaments, from competing for the ECAC title.

Barring any last-minute additions or changes in conference standings before pairings are officially announced on May 7, this year’s ECAC tournament will end up becoming an Ivy consolation tournament. The two-day, double-elimination format will offer an exciting arena of competition, however.

“It’ll be a good competition and from what we hear there will be a few Ivy teams, so it’ll be nice to get some postseason play,” Whitton said.

Yesterday’s rainout against Boston College ensures Harvard will have at least a week-long break before its next game. Allard could not confirm whether the game would be rescheduled because BC’s finals start tomorrow and go through next week.

The Crimson had been hoping for a chance to avenge its 9-0 defeat to BC on April 25. Harvard has lost three straight to BC by mercy rule margins dating back to last season and five straight overall.

Harvard does have a history of beating BC, however. The last Ivy League victory in NCAAs was a 12-1 Crimson win over the Eagles in 1998.

The last time Harvard played in ECACs was in 1997, but there it met a demise familiar to the team from the past two seasons—getting beaten by Cornell. Harvard had swept Cornell during Ivy play, but couldn’t beat the Big Red in the postseason.

Since then, Harvard comfortably won Ivy titles in 1998 and 2000. In 1999 Cornell edged out Harvard for the title and in 2001, the two teams split the Ivy title and Cornell swept Harvard in a best-of-three NCAA playoff. Harvard didn’t compete in ECACs in 1999 due to its injuries. That year, Ivy Player of the Year Chelsea Thoke ’01 nearly single-handedly elevated Harvard to the brink of an Ivy title by pitching effectively in both ends of every doubleheader down the stretch.

There’s a good chance the Crimson will meet Cornell in the postseason again next week, but the team won’t be needing memories of those devastating losses to the Big Red for motivation.

“Whoever we play, we’ll bring our game,” Whitton said.

In the meantime, the players will take advantage of the day off to finish work and enjoy themselves as the semester winds down. Then it’ll be back to business as usual next week.

“It’s nice to have a few days off to recuperate and get some work done, and start kind of fresh, like we do at the beginning of the season,” Whitton said.