Stonehill Chieftains Scalp Softballers; Crimson Suffers First Shutout, 8-0

NORTH EASTON--There was no madness to their method. In fact, there was nothing dramatic, exciting or even half-interesting about the way the women of Stonehill College defeated the Harvard softball team yesterday 5-0, at North Eastern.

What did transpire was a methodical, almost machine-like Chieftain dismembering of a Crimson squad that Coach John Wentzell described as suffering "post-Ivy [tournament] depression."

The Crimson squad had returned Sunday from the rained-out Ivy League tournament after playing only three of its six scheduled games. While his team did not play the full weekend load. Wentzell pointed out that the games that it did play--including two extra. Inning losses--proved to be mentally draining.

Off Base

And if it was a depression the batwomen were experiencing yesterday, it rivaled only the crash of '29. Going into the top of the seventh inning, only four of the Crimson's last 19 batters had reached base. And the squad's final three at bats proved no different. What little resolve the batwomen possessed withered as Stonehill pitcher Catherine Stovall retired the side to end the game and hand the Crimson its first shutout of the season.

Ironically, the game had not begun so morbidly for the Cantabs. The Crimson had loaded the bases in the first inning, on the strength of two walks and a hit to left by outfielder Ann Wilson. However, a pop fly that was all too characteristic of Harvard's hitting for the afternoon ended Harvard's only rally of the day.

But after the first inning, the Crimson did not get anything going. Both offensively and defensively the batwomen looked inept. At the plate, Harvard managed only four hits against Stovall, even though the batwomen were consistently making contact with the Chieftain's fastballs.

Before often than not, however, the Crimson chipped easy flies into the short outfield, or rolled soft grounders on the infield for an easy out.

"We have to snap out of it offensively," Wentzell said. "Our bats have gone silent and we're hitting a lot of lazy fly balls. We're just not going to win games against teams like this without hitting."

Defensively, even the usual magic of freshman pitcher Gerri Rubin was missing. The Chieftains pointed the sky, exploding for 10 hits against the yardling.

The Chieftains wasted little time accumulating their hits as shortstop Nancy Smith pounded Rubin's second pitch of the game for a single into left. After retiring the next butter. Rubin allowed another would-be single that got by left fielder Mary MacKinnon and rolled into deep left field. That misplayed triple knocked in the first of three runs in the inning.

Even though Rubin attempted to adjust her pitching, moving the ball inside and out and throwing some off-speeders, the Chieftains, aided by some more suspect Harvard fielding, continued to amass runs--they scored four runs in the third and another in the fifth before their bats went silent.

Wentzell hopes that his squad can recover from the depression before the 7-5 Crimson head for New Haven and Saturday's re-scheduled Ivy tournament. But with two losses in the tournament already, the Cantabs will have to post strong showings against Brown, Yale and Dartmouth to end up in the running for the Ivy title.