Softball Ivy Preview

Cornell

For three of the last four seasons, losses to Cornell have eliminated the Crimson from the race for the Ivy’s NCAA automatic berth. This season the Big Red is still a legitimate title contender as evidenced by its league-best 13-3 nonconference start. Though Cornell posted that record against weak competition, it has been winning handily. The Big Red is the only team returning a First Team All-Ivy pitcher—junior Sarah Sterman—and two First Team All-Ivy hitters—sophomore Lauren May and junior Kate Varde. Varde is hitting an unreal .491 to start the season and May is batting .366. The Big Red’s biggest weakness last season was getting pitching beyond Sterman, but Cornell may have filled that hole with Nevada freshman Whitney Smith, who is 4-1 with a 2.03 ERA in her rookie campaign.

Columbia

The Lions’ biggest change comes at the top, where Kayla Noonan was named interim head coach to replace Harvard alum Christine Vogt ’94. Under Noonan, Columbia should still be a title contender thanks to Second Team All-Ivy senior pitcher Allison Buehler. Buehler was the workhorse for Columbia in upsetting Dartmouth, Cornell and Harvard in the ECAC championships last year before finally falling to the Crimson in a winner-take-all final. Freshman pitcher Jackie Adelphio provides the complement to Buehler the team has recently lacked. The Lions’ hitting has kept them from being an Ivy contender in the past, but sophomore Marisa Marconi has started to change that with a sterling .422 average thus far. Columbia posted a respectable 8-12 pre-Ivy start against mild competition.

Princeton

The defending Ivy champs may have graduated the Ivy League’s best pitcher and the team’s best hitter in Brie Galicinao, but the Tigers are still a serious contender. Princeton posted a respectable 8-10 record against one of the league’s toughest pre-Ivy schedules and earned a split with both Chattanooga and Tennessee. Princeton’s freshman Californian pitcher Erin Snyder has faced the burden of replacing Galicinao’s ace role in starting half of the Tigers’ pre-Ivy games. Snyder and the team’s returning starters, Wendy Bingham and Melissa Finley, have each posted .500 records thus far. At the plate, First Team All-Ivy first baseman Kristen Del Calvo is off to another torrid start with a .348 average, Finley is hitting a team-best .383 and Snyder has lit up opponents with a .326 pre-Ivy rookie campaign.

Brown

Brown will be capable of improving upon its 6-8 Ivy mark from a year ago now that its best sophomore pitchers, Uchenna Omokaro and Marissa Berkes, have started to develop. At the plate, freshman Jaimie Wirkowski has become an immediate force, leading the team with a .345 average, and junior First Team All-Ivy infielder Laura Leonetti has been solid as usual in hitting .344. The Bears have not gotten much offense beyond those two, however, in their 9-12 pre-Ivy start against mild competition.

Yale

Perennial First Team All-Ivy player Jesseka Bartholomew is poised to make her last run as team captain. Bartholomew has hit .379 so far, but her performance at the plate has not been enough to overcome the youth around her through Yale’s 10-16 pre-Ivy start. The youth is heaviest in the Bulldog pitching staff, which regularly deploys three freshmen. Beth Pavlicek has been the best of bunch with a 6-2 record and a 1.12 ERA. Her teammates in the circle have been solid, but they have not been able to match the near-perfect performances required due to the Bulldogs’ lack of run production.

Dartmouth

Three seasons ago, the Big Green was Harvard’s toughest competition for the Ivy crown but no longer. The team’s two perennial All-Ivy players, Kristin King and Sarah Damon, have graduated. Dartmouth’s veteran pitchers, senior Christine Quattrocchi and junior Lisa Caruso, have never come close to matching the numbers from their standout freshmen seasons. In its pre-Ivy season, Dartmouth posted a 3-11 record and batted just .161 as a team. Senior Carly Haggard, the team’s top returning hitter from a year ago (who is also the Dartmouth hockey team’s top scorer), is off to a .118 start.

Penn

This year’s Penn team could well be the best in school history, but that isn’t saying much. The Quakers finished at the bottom of the Ivy League last year and were the only team without any First or Second Team All-Ivy representation. Senior Crista Farrell has been the bright spot in the team’s 6-13-1 pre-Ivy campaign with a .422 average. Junior pitcher Nicki Borgstadt was a workhorse with 32 starts for Penn last year, but she should have more help this season.

—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.