Harvard Falls in Extra Innings

After nine innings of play, one had to wonder if the Harvard softball team’s game against the University of Rhode Island (15-24, 5-5 Atlantic 10) would ever end. When sophomore first baseman Whitney Shaw hit her second home run of the day out of the URI Softball Complex in the top of the tenth, it looked like the Crimson might steal the win. But in the bottom of the inning, Rams freshman Erika Szymanski took matters into her own hands, blasting a three-run homer that sent the ball sailing over the center-field fence and Harvard (18-20, 9-3 Ivy) back to the bus with a 7-5 loss.

“It was a tough loss,” co-captain Margaux Black said. “URI really battled. It went back and forth, but they ended up on top.”

The final outcome would not have been obvious in the first few innings, as the Crimson held the Rams scoreless through the first five frames.

“Our defense was really solid,” Shaw said. “We really helped our pitchers, helped out our offense with our defense.”

In the first inning, the Harvard offense got going when senior catcher Jessica Pledger walked with the bases loaded to score classmate and outfielder Stephanie Krysiak, a Crimson sports editor.

Two innings later, Harvard struck again—this time much more emphatically, as Shaw sent her first home run of the day to center field.

“I was just trying to help my team,” Shaw said. “I was trying to do what everyone was trying to do: get hits, get runs, keep the pressure on them.”

On the defensive side, sophomore Julia Moore held URI to zero runs and three hits in two innings of pitching before she was replaced by classmate Mari Zumbro.

“Because this isn’t our Ivy League game, we really just wanted to get everyone a chance on the mound,” Pledger said. “Jules had a great start, but we wanted to get everyone a turn.”

When Zumbro took over for Moore on the mound, she didn’t miss a beat, allowing zero runs and only three hits in her first three innings.

“Mari hasn’t seen a lot of time,” Pledger said. “She did a great job. She was picking her pitches well, got a lot of outs. She did a great job getting ahead on batters.”

But in the sixth inning, URI was all over Zumbro, scoring three runs on four hits to turn a two-run deficit into a 3-2 lead.

“We were sitting on our lead and coasting,” Crimson coach Jenny Allard said. “They started to hit our pitcher.”

The first to strike for the Rams was sophomore outfielder Brittany Julich, who sent home teammates Amanda Sbei and Kelly Coker on a single. Next up, sophomore catcher Nicole Massoni doubled to send Julich home.

“[URI] showed a lot of fight,” Pledger said.

The game might have ended in seven innings had it not been for an unearned run scored in the top of the frame after a pair errors by Rams shortstop Courtney Prendergastt. Junior outfielder Emily Henderson grounded a ball to Prendergastt, whose throwing error allowed the outfielder to reach second. After advancing to third on a Krysiak groundout, Henderson scored to send the game into extra innings as Prendergastt misplayed a ball batted by co-captain Melissa Schellberg, a Crimson sports editor.

“We never let up,” Shaw said. “We were resilient.”

But the squad was unable to score for the next two innings.

“We definitely need to be stronger and more aggressive at the plate and swing for hits instead of swinging not to get out,” Allard said.

Luckily for Harvard, it was able to prevent URI from plating any runs in those innings. All looked lost for a moment when the bases were loaded and Julich was heading for home plate on a groundball, but sophomore shortstop Jane Alexander made the play, getting the ball to Pledger in time for the out.

“It was a huge stop,” Black said.

And for another inning, the two teams fought on in a stalemate.

“We would get runners on base and not score. They would get runners on base and we would hold them,” Pledger said. “It was just a battle until the end.”

It looked like the Crimson would pull out the win when Shaw hit a two-run shot, her second home run on the game, in the top of the tenth. But Rams right fielder Melissa Wilson responded in the bottom of the inning with an RBI of her own to pull the Rams within one, before Szymanski blasted a walk-off three-run homer against Crimson freshman Jessica Ferri to win the game, 7-5.

“Honestly, it just makes us hungry for the weekend,” Black said. “We’ll come out ready to play.”

—Staff writer Christina C. McClintock can be reached at ccmcclin@fas.harvard.edu.