Rain Preempts North Division Clincher

The Harvard softball team was tied, 4-4, with Dartmouth in the bottom of the fifth inning of its second game on Saturday. After going down 3-0 in the second inning, the Crimson (27-12, 12-5 Ivy) had rallied, and with the bases loaded and only one out in the fifth, freshmen Melissa Schellberg stepped to the plate with the chance to knock in some runs, give her team the lead, and possibly the clinch the Ivy League North Division championship as well.

Schellberg will have to wait for that chance.

As she approached the plate, the rain began to fall and within just a few minutes the tarp was dragged out over the field and the Big Green coach was calling to her team to “pack it up and head home.”

If the rain had come five minutes later, a Harvard win and the division championship might have been in the books. But the rain did not wait—and now the Crimson will have to.

“We definitely felt that we were going to score in that inning,” head coach Jenny Allard said. “We are playing our best ball right now, and this is just a test of our patience.”

Harvard, which seized a two-game lead in the division with a 2-0 win in Saturday’s opener, will travel to Dartmouth (15-17, 10-7) on Tuesday to make up the doubleheader that was slated to be played in Hanover yesterday. With a sweep, the Crimson will be assured the North Division championship and home-field advantage for next weekend’s Ivy Championship Series against Penn, which finished 14-6 in Ivy play.

If Harvard splits the contests, it will win its division, but the ending of Saturday’s second game becomes crucial in deciding home field for the ICS. If the Crimson loses both games, the finish to Saturday’s game will determine the division champion.

Barring a Tuesday sweep, then, the washed-out innings will likely be played at Harvard some time this week.

“We are all just really fired up to clinch,” junior pitcher Shelly Madick said. “I think it is tougher for them to think about defending us.”

HARVARD 2, DARTMOUTH 0

There were two defining moments in the Crimson’s early game against Dartmouth on Saturday.

The first came in the bottom of the fourth inning, with the game still scorless, senior Lauren Brown standing on second, and rookie slugger Lauren Murphy at the plate. Murphy, who blasted three home runs against Boston College last Thursday, decided to go deep once again. And just like that, Harvard had a two-run lead. The bomb to left field was Murphy’s 17th fence-clearer this year, setting a new Ivy League single-season record.

The second game-changing play was with one out in the top of the seventh. Big Green first baseman Alyssa Parker smacked a hard line drive toward second that on almost any other day would have been an easy single. On Saturday, though, with a division title only two wins away, senior captain Julia Kidder made a diving stop and threw the runner out from her knees.

“Those are momentum-changing plays,” Allard said. “Julia has been playing exceptionally well defensively.... It was great to see her coming through in those clutch situations.”

The defensive effort helped Madick finish her complete-game win. Madick registered nine strikeouts during the three-hit shutout game to improve her record to 14-3.

“[A reliable defense] gives you a lot of confidence, especially if you are down in the count, to throw a pitch you wouldn’t normally throw,” Madick said. “You know the defense is behind you 100 percent.”

The Crimson has now won nine straight and 14 of its last 15.

—Staff writer Julia R. Senior can be reached at jrsenior@fas.harvard.edu.