Crimson Preps for Tough Opponent in Penn

Fresh off of winning three out of four games against Dartmouth, the Harvard softball team will take on Penn in the inaugural Ivy Championship Series, with a passage to the NCAA Tournament at stake.

The Crimson, who has not reached the Tournament since 2000, secured the North Division with an 11-8 win against the Big Green on Tuesday, then clinched home-field advantage in the ICS, a best-of-three series. The first two games will be tomorrow afternoon at Soldiers field. If the teams split, the deciding game will happen on Sunday.

Both Harvard and the Quakers finished with 14-6 records in league play, but the Crimson got home field as a result of its sweep of Penn in its Ivy opener.

“[Home field] is big,” Harvard coach Jenny Allard said. “I definitely feel that not having to travel, being comfortable at home, it matters. It settles people, at least at the beginning.”

On March 31, the Crimson opened league play with 6-3 and 9-6 home wins over the Quakers. But Penn has improved since then and has the second-highest team batting average in the league. Its .308 average is ten percentage points higher than the Crimson’s.

“I respect Penn,” Allard said. “They are a great ballclub. They have tremendous hitters and I think it will be a battle this weekend.”

The Quakers’ top hitter is junior second baseman Annie Kinsey. Kinsey easily leads the Ivy League in hitting with a .456 average, the 12th highest in the country. She also leads the league in hits with 62, runs scored with 52, doubles with 15, and total bases with 109.

But she is far from the only offensive standout for Penn. In fact, junior shortstop Christina Khosravi was the Ivy League Player of the Year last season. This year, she is hitting .305 with six home runs and 25 RBI. Senior designated player Stephanie Reichert leads the team with 39 RBI, two ahead of Kinsey.

Despite this firepower, Harvard ace Shelly Madick held the Quakers in check in the first game in March, limiting them to three runs while striking out 11 in a complete game victory. Her 1.56 ERA leads the league, while her 130 strikeouts ranks third. She has amassed a 15-4 record this season and will likely start the opener.

“They’re all great hitters,” Madick said of Penn. “One for nine, they have a pretty solid lineup. I’m not taking anyone for granted. The second you take someone for granted is the second they’re gonna come back to bite you in the butt. Penn has good bats, so as long as we come out strong against them, stay ahead in the count, work our pitches, and make them hit our pitch, we should be fine.”

Junior Amanda Watkins and freshman Dana Roberts should also see action on the mound this weekend. Each rank in the top ten of the league in ERA. Watkins’ 2.37 mark ranks seventh, while Roberts’ 2.68 mark is ninth. She is also tied for the league lead with four saves.

By contrast, the Quakers have just one pitcher with an ERA in the top ten, but it is a good one. Sophomore Emily Denstedt ranks fourth with a 2.44 mark and has been the workhorse of the team all year, piling up 15 complete games and a 13-8 record.

She will have her hands full against a Crimson lineup with three of the top eight hitters in the league in terms of average. Captain and second baseman Julia Kidder is eighth with a .349 mark, while her double play partner, senior Lauren Brown, is sixth with a .356 average. Leading the team and ranking fourth in the league is freshman Lauren Murphy, who owns a .363 mark. She is better known, however, for her home runs, as her 18 long balls this season are a league record. She has been on such a tear recently that Dartmouth resorted to the "Barry Bonds treatment" when she was up, intentionally walking her seven of the last ten times she stepped up to bat, sometimes even with the bases empty or first base occupied.

Luckily, the other hitters have been backing her up and are ready to make Penn pay if it adapts that strategy.

“Our hitters have a lot of confidence against Penn,” Madick said. “The key is to stay at them and keep us in the game, and I think our hitters will do the job.”

—Staff writer Ted Kirby can be reached at tjkirby@fas.harvard.edu.