Softball Splits First Two ILCS Games

Staring at what could have been the last out of its season, the Harvard softball team didn’t falter—it delivered.

Sophomore Mari Zumbro’s single in the bottom of the eighth gave the Crimson new life, and two batters later, senior Jen Francis blasted a three-run dinger to straightaway center to bring Harvard back from the brink and force a deciding third game in the Ivy League Championship Series.

The Crimson’s 4-2 win over Cornell in the nightcap came after a 3-1 loss in the series opener at Niemand*Robison Field in Ithaca, N.Y. on Friday.

“It was a battle, it really was,” sophomore pitcher Rachel Brown said. “I really thought it could have gone either way if we had caught some lucky breaks…We’re really proud of the way we played.”

HARVARD 4, CORNELL 2

In a game that was mostly quiet—each team scored in the first inning and didn’t cross the plate again until extra frames—Harvard needed some fireworks to keep its season alive.

The Big Red got a run off Crimson ace Brown in the top of the eighth to snap a 1-1 tie. Alyson Intihar belted a single up the middle that scored Marissa Amiraian from second with the go-ahead run.

In its last half inning, with the best-of-three series on the line, Harvard got off to an inauspicious start. Sophomore cleanup hitter Whitney Shaw grounded out to third to open the inning, and freshman Jessica Ferri chased an offering from Cornell hurler Elizabeth Dalrymple to make the second out of the inning.

Zumbro—who had started just five games prior to this weekend’s series—then stepped to the plate with the season on her shoulders.

The sophomore left fielder, playing in place of injured junior Emily Henderson, connected with an 0-1 pitch and got aboard with a single to right-center.

“Mari stepped up huge,” co-captain Margaux Black said. “She came in, she came in confident, and she looked like she’d been playing in left field all season. She really added a lot of energy to our lineup.”

Senior Jessica Pledger followed with a single to third base before being pulled for sophomore pinch runner Eve Rosenbaum.

That brought up Francis, who had struck out three times in the game.

“Coach put it the best,” Black said. “We were on our last breath, and Jen Francis gave us CPR.”

After taking a called first strike, Francis drove Dalrymple’s second pitch over the fence for the walkoff win.

“She rounded third base, and we saw that she was crying, and we just started to cry because it was so emotional,” Brown said. “For her to be able to do that for the team—she had had a tough day at the plate before that—but to be able to come up in the clutch like that is truly inspirational.”

“Jen Fran hits a bomb—it was unreal,” Black added. “She knew that that could have been her last at-bat, and she didn’t want it to be. She proved that.”

The Crimson and Big Red each put a run up in the first inning. Cornell got on the board in the top of the inning with an Elise Menaker home run—one of just four hits Black allowed in 6.1 innings of work.

Harvard responded with a run of its own in the bottom of the first. Junior Ellen Macadam led off with a single to center field and moved to second on senior Stephanie Krysiak’s sacrifice bunt. Co-captain Melissa Schellberg, who is also a Crimson sports editor, brought Macadam home with a single to right.

CORNELL 3, HARVARD 1

The defending Ivy champions got things done in the first game of the series, snapping a 1-1 tie in the sixth to take a 3-1 win in a meeting of the Ancient Eight’s two best pitchers.

The Big Red crossed the plate first in the bottom of the third, after Amiraian got on base with a one-out double down the left field line. Two batters later, Shannon Crane drove her home with a single to center before Brown struck Menaker out to get out of the inning.

The Crimson tied things right back up in the fourth, when Krysiak got the rally going with a one-out double of her own. After Schellberg popped up and Shaw walked, Ferri brough Krysiak around with a single to left.

But from there, Dalrymple—who pitched every inning of the series—shut Harvard down, allowing just two hits over the final three innings.

“I have so much respect for her,” Brown said. “We had a lot of hits off of her, but we just didn’t string them together when we needed to, and I think that’s really a testament to Elizabeth’s pitching.”

Brown, who led the Ivy League with a 1.25 ERA in the regular season, did not fare so well against the Cornell offense.

Though the sophomore pitched her way out of a fifth-inning jam, Brown lost control in the sixth, walking in a pair of runs with the bases loaded. Black came in to get Intihar to fly out and end the inning.

“I’m disappointed in my performance in the first game,” Brown said. “Maybe it was being tired at the end of a long season, maybe a mental lapse, but Margaux really stepped up. She was incredible, and she’s my hero.”

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.