Softball Struggles in San Diego State Classic II

Harvard softball (9-10) wasn’t able to repeat earlier success in its second Californian tournament over spring break, dropping four out of five games in the San Diego State Classic II. The Crimson pulled out a win in its last game of the tournament against the University of San Diego after a weekend full close losses, two of which went into extra innings.

“Spring break was a long stretch having about 11 games in approximately ten days. It was a good experience, a good building trip,” captain Zoe Galindo said. “I think we had great success our first weekend in LA and then going down to San Diego for the second half of the trip for the last five games I think we really played some opponents that pushed our limits more and made us uncomfortable in certain situations.”

HARVARD 4, SAN DIEGO 1

The Crimson picked up its only win of the weekend in its final matchup against San Diego. The 4-1 victory over the Toreros Saturday afternoon ended a five game losing streak for Harvard and boosted its overall record in California to 5-6.

The scoreboard remained blank for both teams for the first three innings of the game until senior Haley Davis broke through in the top of the fourth with a home run to put Harvard up 1-0. The Crimson then notched three more runs in the sixth to secure a commanding 4-0 lead.

Senior pitcher Morgan Groom kept USD scoreless for five innings, striking out six on the day. The Toreros were only able to record one run on a Harvard error after San Diego’s Mary Grabowski tripled. Freshman pitcher Kathleen Duncan came out to close out the game in the seventh, inducing three groundouts to secure the win.

BRIGHAM YOUNG 2, HARVARD 0

Brigham Young shutout the Crimson in its tournament opener on Thursday. Base runners were rare for Harvard, with the Cougars keeping the Crimson to only three hits on the game.

Harvard had an early chance to score in the second with a Haley Davis double and a Savannah Bradley single with only one out, but BYU struck the following two batters out to end the inning.

Duncan was solid in the circle allowing only two runs over eight hits, but a Cougar RBI double in the fourth and solo homer in the fifth was enough to secure a BYU lead and end the contest.

SAN DIEGO STATE 8, HARVARD 7

The Crimson forced eight innings after overcoming an earlier 4-2 deficit with five runs in the sixth inning, but was unable to bring home the win when San Diego State answered with two runs in bottom of the sixth and two runs in the eighth.

Freshman Meagan Lantz led the Harvard comeback with a grand slam, making up four of her five RBIs in the game. The first run was scored before Lantz’s dinger thanks to Junior Jillian Leslie’s RBI when she earned a walk with the bases loaded. Lantz notched her final RBI of the game at the top of the eighth with a single to drive Davis home.

“In the SDSU game and throughout California Meagan Lantz had a really great week. She really proved herself in different situations,” Galindo said. “When she hit a grand slam to get us back in the game it was really huge moment and it really fired everyone up.”

The Aztecs scored in its first three innings up to bat with one in the first, two in the second, and one in the third. Freshman Rhianna Rich started the initial drive to close the gap with a left field single in the third to score Harvard’s first run of the game.

Lantz’s hit in the eighth gave Harvard the 7-6 lead, but the Aztecs answered the call with a two-RBI double to earn them the walk off 8-7 win.

“SDSU is suppose to be a really competitive team and we were able to tie it up and go into extra innings,” Rich said. “It was great to see the team come together at the end of the game and put up a fight.”

COLORADO STATE 6, HARVARD 1

Lantz again stood out in the Harvard offense, driving in the lone run of the game with her first career triple in the sixth inning. Lantz’ contribution, although, was too little, too late to catch up to the 6-0 lead Colorado State had already built up.

Colorado State capitalized on a combination of passed balls and wild pitches to score its first three runs. CSU recorded one run in the first and four in the second to set up an early 5-0 lead. A Rams RBI single in the fifth rounded out Colorado State’s runs and secured them the contest even with Lantz’s RBI in the sixth.

ST. MARY’S 9, HARVARD 8

Harvard forced its second extra innings game of the tournament when Davis hit a homerun in the bottom of the seventh to tie up the score.

The Crimson bounced back from a low scoring offense against Colorado State to take an early 4-0 lead in the first against St. Mary’s. Junior Giana Panariello drove in Harvard’s first run with a double to the left that plated Rich. An infield RBI single by Bradley then brought home another Crimson to make it a 2-0 game. Leslie batted two-RBI single to bring both Panariello and Bradley home to score giving Harvard a promising, early lead.

St. Mary’s scored two runs in the top of the second to cut the deficit in half. The Crimson answered in the third extending their lead by three more runs. The Gaels rallied over the next three innings to score five runs. Harvard added two more to their score to end the seventh tied at 7-7.

St. Mary’s continued their scoring streak, sending two batters home in the top of the eighth. Lantz scored a double to drive home Rich, but the Crimson failed to tally another to match the Gaels.

“Even though the games in San Diego didn’t always fall in our favor, I think that it taught us a lot and gave us some good weapons going forward and where to improve and where to kick off with,” Galindo said.

—Staff writer Ginny Miller can be reached at virginiamiller@college.harvard.edu.