Athlete of the Week

Rarely does an athlete get called upon to go as far beyond the call of duty as Chelsea Thoke was asked to last weekend.

Still more infrequent are the times when an athlete dominates her competition as totally as Thoke did.

Thoke, a sophomore pitcher on the Harvard softball team, worked not double, but triple duty over the weekend.

She pitched a complete game against Yale on Saturday afternoon and another against Brown in the front end of a doubleheader on Sunday. Finally, she entered Sunday's nightcap in relief in the first inning and went the distance for the Crimson.

More importantly, Thoke owned both the Elis and the Bears. In seven innings on Saturday, she allowed one earned run and struck out nine. In Sunday's first game, she gave up one run again and fanned 10 in another seven innings.

Her third game went into extra innings, so she threw 7.1 innings--more than a standard complete game. She must have been tired by then because she allowed two earned runs and struck out only eight batters.

Her numbers for the weekend are impressive by any standard: 27 strikeouts versus only 13 hits and nine walks in 21.1 innings. And she did it all with a blister on her left foot that certainly impaired her walking, if not her pitching; Thoke was limping noticeably after Sunday's twin bill.

Her ERA was 3.13 going into the weekend, but she coolly trimmed half a point off of it in two days; it now stands at 2.63. Thoke now has 83 strikeouts for the year in 77.1 innings pitched.

Her three victories pushed her record over the .500 mark to 7-6 and did the same for the Crimson (12-11, 4-0 Ivy). Thoke's efforts also helped Harvard start its Ivy League season at the top of the standings and run its regular-season Ivy winning streak to 23 games.

For leading Harvard to an undefeated weekend, for testing her limits and for embarrassing Yale and Brown's hitters, The Crimson had an easy time naming Chelsea Thoke its Athlete of the Week.

--EDUARDO PEREZ-GIZ