Softball Strikes Back, Takes Two From League Champion Princeton

The 2003 Princeton softball squad may have already clinched its second straight Ivy title this spring, but one thing it will never have is a win over this year’s Harvard team.

The Crimson (14-24, 6-6 Ivy) swept an epic Sunday doubleheader at Princeton (20-16-1, 10-3). Both games went deep into extra innings, and both games concluded with a Harvard ‘W’.

The 3-2, 12-inning Crimson victory in game one and the 6-5, 10-inning win in game two combined for eight extra frames—one more than a typical softball game. Princeton pitcher freshman Erin Snyder pitched 17 innings of the doubleheader and struck out 16 but wound up with both defeats.

Had the Harvard players failed to sweep, Princeton would have celebrated the outright Ivy title and NCAA berth before their eyes. Instead, the Tigers will have to close out a darkness-shortened game against Brown to clinch the tourney bid. If the Tigers lose to Brown, they will take on Cornell in a best-of-three playoff to determine the league crown.

The Crimson’s sweep of the Tigers was all the more remarkable considering Harvard was swept by Ivy cellar-dwelling Penn (10-27-1, 3-11) on Saturday. In the same weekend, Harvard achieved the rare feat of tripling the loss total of the Ivy’s first-place team after tripling the win total of the Ivy’s last-place team—Penn went from one league win to three, Princeton from one loss to three.

“It was a little bit of a roller coaster,” said junior tri-captain Kara Brotemarkle. “Obviously we were a bit disappointed after Saturday’s performance, elated after Sunday’s—polar ends there.”

The Crimson, despite guaranteeing itself its losingest season since 1994, achieved a feat worthy of champions by sweeping Princeton. Only Harvard’s NCAA-qualifying teams of 1998 and 2000 have done the same in the history of the program.

Harvard 6, Princeton 5 (10 inn.)

Harvard captain Tiffany Whitton, one year after delivering a game-winning walk off grand slam against the Tigers, gave the Princeton crowd another big hit to remember in game two on Sunday.

Between the two doubleheaders, Whitton had gone 0-for-6 against Snyder entering the top of the tenth. With freshman Cara Woodard on second and the score tied at four, Whitton came up to the plate a seventh time against Snyder thinking she had nothing to lose.

After struggling with Snyder’s off-speed pitches, Whitton found Snyder’s fastball and drove it out of the yard for the 6-4 lead.

The home run gave sophomore pitcher Lauren Bettinelli the opportunity to close out the game. Bettinelli had already pitched four shutout innings of relief, shutting down the Tigers in clutch situations. Though Bettinelli let up a solo home run and a double in the 10th, she struck out Tiger leadoff hitter Kristin Lueke to finish off the sweep.

Bettinelli, a college pitcher for the first time this season, gave the Crimson the kind of relief pitching performance it had been seeking all season.

“Lauren really stepped up and inspired the rest of the team to dig deeper,” Whitton said.

Harvard had led the game 4-1 in the fifth thanks to a three-run home run be junior shortstop Rachel Goldberg, but Princeton cleanup hitter Melissa Finley matched that with a three-run shot of her own in the bottom frame.

Harvard 3, Princeton 2 (12 inn.)

Brotemarkle went the entire way herself to earn the victory for Harvard.

She gave up just six hits in 12 innings, including seven consecutive shutout innings to close out the game. It was a performance she said she never knew she had in her.

“Usually I’m pretty tired after seven [innings],” Brotemarkle said. “I happy I was to be able to go all 12.”

Sophomore Lauren Stefanchik provided the eventual game-winning hit off Snyder with the bases loaded and two outs in the top of the 12th. She had been 0-for-5 against Snyder prior to her final at bat.

Princeton had scored first with two runs in the bottom of the fifth, but Harvard answered in the top of the sixth on a two-run double by Sara Williamson that drove in Stefanchik and freshman Erin Halpenny.

Penn

Harvard had won 17 straight games against perennial Ivy cellar-dweller Penn since 1994, but by the end of Saturday the Crimson had a two-game losing streak against the Quakers after falling by scores of 6-4 in game one and 4-2 in game two.

Brotemarkle took the first defeat despite striking out nine in six innings. She said Penn took both games without hitting the ball hard.

“There were quite a few times in the Penn game that we had communication breakdowns on defense,” Brotemarkle said. “They were doing a lot of bunting and we weren’t getting the outs that we needed to.”

Among the worst breakdowns was when a Penn runner was allowed to steal home.

The end result of the forgettable Penn series is that it left the Harvard players with nowhere to go but up against Princeton, and that they did.

“We had no chance at the title at that point, so we [thought] we may as well just come out and play our hardest [at Princeton],” Brotemarkle said.

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