Women's Softball Crushes Tufts, 25-12

The women's softball team lost an 11 run lead but yesterday afternoon rallied to rout Tufts, 25-12, and raise its record to 7-2.

A slow drizzle didn't lessen the effect of the Crimson nine's bats as the women surged to an 11-0 lead after two innings. Co-captain Lisa "The Mouse" Bernstein started the barrage with a lead-off home run--her second four-bagger in two games. Leftfielder Sara LeBlond knocked in six RBIs to lead the team in hits.

In spite of the early onslaught, Tufts didn't cave in. With the help of a few errors and poor pitching control. Tufts eked its way back to knot the score at 11-all by the top of the fourth.

In the middle of the fourth, Karen Pelletier relieved Elaine Holpuch and threw two-and-a-half innings of strikes, forcing Tufts to hit easy infield grounders and arresting the rally.

"Our team knew it was better. It just took us a while to prove it," third baseman Pat Horne said. "Our pitching control was going cold in the rain but we hustled them out on our hits and got on base more than we should have," she added.

Pelletier allowed only one run and gained the win.

The team travels to Penn Saturday to play in its first Ivy League Championship, but will be minus a few players because of Rotary scholarship interviews. "I've been juggling the line-up lately to fill in the gaps so when we change positions and people on Saturday we'll be used to it." Coach Kit Morris said.

"Our basic strategy will be survival--anytime you play five games in two days that's about all you can expect," he added. Morris said that he also expects high-scoring games full of hit-and-run plays.

"The team has been practicing aggressive on-base tactics all week under assistant coach Rich Reid," pitcher Nancy Boutilier said.

Flail Yale

Yale, last year's Ivy winner, is clearly the favorite and plays Harvard after games against Penn and Brown. "Yale can be beat if some of the teams play up to their potential," Morris said. "We'll be playing them at a good time--when they're tired after Penn and Brown," he added.