New Stance Yields Gold Standard for Harvard Shortstop

When not all was glittering, Harvard junior Rachel Goldberg worked hard to get back into the swing of things.

“I didn’t have a very successful freshman year batting,” Goldberg recalls.

Instead of waiting to confirm whether this performance was the result of jitters brought on by the transition to college, Goldberg took the advice of Harvard coach Jenny Allard and made a change after her freshman campaign.

She had always batted as a lefty but decided to move to the other side of the plate to exploit her power. In her first season from the right side of the plate, she posted a league-best .419 average against Ivy opponents.

Since the age of twelve, the 20-year old from Princeton Junction, New Jersey had been a slap hitter. Even though she was naturally right-handed, she batted as a left-hander. Doing so put her an extra step closer to first base after a swing and allowed her to use her speed, rather than her power, to get on base.

Speed, though, did not seem to be enough as time passed.

Maybe it was the second ACL surgery before her freshman season that slowed her down. Maybe it was the talent level of the college game in which players are more talented than high schoolers, but Goldberg could no longer rely on her speed alone to get on base.

This fact, coupled with informal displays of power from the right side of the plate during pre-season practices, helped set a change in motion.

“We were playing home run derby one time in practice, and I hit some out right-handed, so coach recommended that hitting from the right might be a good thing for me,” she says.

After receiving pointers from Allard, Goldberg decided to work throughout the off-season between freshman and sophomore years to make the switch to a right-handed power hitter.

“I had to make a decision,” she says, knowing the effort the change would require. “If you’re going to go for something like that, it has to be all out. I took the plunge, and it ended up working out for the best.”

Having been a slap hitter for twelve years, Goldberg had to start with the basics of being a power hitter, which required a change in mentality as well as technique.

“She was very unorthodox, but had tremendous power,” Allard says.

When told of Allard’s comments, Goldberg smiled, remembering an initially clumsy swing that has now developed into a fluid motion.

The transition was not easy, and required extra time in the batting cage to make the switch. But in the end, Goldberg feels she made the right choice, even if that fact wasn’t clear early on.

At the beginning of her sophomore season, it looked as though Goldberg’s work might not have paid off, after she went 0-for-3 in the Crimson’s opener against Cleveland State. She finally got on base in Harvard’s fifth game, following it up with her first home run of the season five days later.

But Goldberg still was not confident as she entered another brief hitting drought. After some rough games, she finally felt herself getting into the swing of it.

“Halfway through our season was when everything started to come together,” she said. “I got confidence in my swing, hands, weight transfer, and it all started to work,” she says.

It was during this mid-season stretch that Goldberg came alive, stringing together some standout performances in Ivy League games.

At Yale, she went 3-for-4, coming up with big hits. Batting righty, she drove in the winning run in the first game and scored the game-tying run that allowed the team to go ahead in the second.

Against rival Dartmouth, she was 5-for-6, recording four RBI, a double, triple and a homerun in the two games.

This tremendous success helped her finish in the top 20 in batting in the Ivy League with a .302 average. She was second on the team with a .570 slugging percentage and finished the season on a seven-game hitting streak.

These impressive credentials made her a clear Second Team All-Ivy selection and validated the decision to retool her swing.

The offensive numbers and statistics bring attention, but Goldberg was vital to the Crimson before she discovered her power hitting capabilities.

“I pride myself more on my defensive ability,” she says. “If the opponent doesn’t score, they can’t win. You have a lot of control over it. You make the plays, and then you get up to bat.”Junior tri-captain and pitcher Kara Brotemarkle agrees.

“Rachel is the anchor of our defense,” she says.

With a rocket arm and impressive range, Goldberg often makes difficult plays seem routine.

This season, Goldberg carries with her some off-field roles. With only one senior on the roster (tri-captain Tiffany Whitton), a rotating infield from some off-season shuffling and a slew of underclassmen, Goldberg recognizes her increased responsibility to help the young team and expects a lot of herself.

To reflect her more mature approach to the sport, Goldberg has broken down the game into its basic components and will try to improve off-field practice to translate into game-time execution.

“It’s a team-wide goal to execute consistently,” she says. “If there’s a runner on third, I need to get them in. If there’s a runner on first, I need to bump them over.”

Along with these goals, Goldberg hopes to work toward flawless defense, making plays in the field that help the team win.

Of course, these demanding expectations are nothing exceptional for Goldberg, a psychology concentrator who balanced five classes sophomore year while she was putting in extra time at the gym.

Further evidence of her work ethic for achieving her goals has became apparent this year. After returning from the fall semester in Scotland, she began extensive pre-season training to make up for lost time away from the game.

“I hadn’t swung a bat in seven months,” she says. “They don’t even have baseball gloves there.”

Now that Goldberg’s back, she’s happy to be playing again and part of the team.

“We all get along really well,” she says. “They’re my best friends here.”

Goldberg looks forward to seeing what she and the team will accomplish this year, hoping to reclaim the Midas touch she discovered on the other side of the plate.