SEASON RECAP: Harvard Pounds League En Route To NCAAs

Spurred by a mix of veteran leadership, stellar pitching, and talented newcomers, the Harvard softball team recorded one of the best seasons in program history. The Crimson finished the season 31-15 overall, won the inaugural Ivy League North Division, then swept Penn, 4-0 and 4-2, to win the inaugural Ivy League Softball Championship to finish out league play with a 16-6 record.

Harvard moved on to the NCAA Regional at Hempstead, N.Y. In Hempstead, Harvard lost a 3-2 eight-inning nail-biter against Hofstra before falling in a gut-wrenching 1-0 loss to Albany the next day to conclude its season. The two tournament losses could not overshadow one of the team’s best seasons ever.

“We are really satisfied with the season we had,” said captain second baseman Julia Kidder. “We won the Ivy League, which was our goal since September.”

Kidder was one of the main reasons for the team’s success. Batting either first or second for most of the season, the senior finished third on the team and 11th in the league with a .341 average and was named to the All-Ivy second team. Her double-play partner, senior shortstop Lauren Brown, finished 10th in the league with a .347 average and was second on the team with six home runs. She was selected to the All-Ivy First Team.

Leading the team in both categories was freshman designated player Lauren Murphy. One of four team members to start all 46 games, the first year slugger was seventh in the league with a .350 average.

More impressively, she broke the Ivy League record for home runs in a season with 18 longballs, while also leading the league with 47 RBI. She was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week three times and Ivy League Player of the Week once.At the end of the season, she added to her accolades by being named Ivy League Rookie of the Year and was selected to the All-Ivy First Team and the All-Northeast Region First Team.

Also starting all 46 games for the Crimson were Kidder, junior first baseman Danielle Kerper, and freshman center fielder Stephanie Krysiak.

“This is definitely the best offense we’ve had since I’ve been here,” junior pitcher Shelly Madick said. “One through nine, we have girls who can hit the ball out, we have girls who can drop the bunt, we have slappers who can hit triples.”

Making the offense’s runs stand up was the pitching staff, one of the best in the league. Led by the 1.50 ERA and 16-6 record of Madick, the Ivy League Pitcher of the Year, the Crimson compiled a 2.47 ERA, second in the league to Cornell by just .03.

Backing Madick up in the rotation were fellow junior Amanda Watkins and freshman Dana Roberts. Watkins went 7-1 with a 2.54 ERA, good enough for eighth in the league, while Roberts recorded a 7-5 record and a 2.60 ERA, ranking ninth in the league.

On the field, the Crimson first found real success over spring break. Competing in Macon, Ga., for the Mercer Nissan Invitational, Harvard won four straight games after dropping its opener, beating Wright State, 5-4, to clinch the title.

The Crimson opened Ivy League play against its South Division opponents and went 4-4, sweeping Penn and Princeton while getting swept by Columbia and Cornell. But once intra-divisional play began, Harvard surged.

The Crimson started off in the North Division by winning three of four at Yale behind great pitching performances from Madick, Watkins, and Roberts. After losing the last game of that series, Harvard went on a nine-game winning streak. A 3-2 loss at Dartmouth in the final series of the season snapped the streak, but the team bounced back by winning the next two games to clinch the division and home-field advantage in the Ivy League Softball Championship, where it would lay the broom to the Quakers.

—Staff writer Ted Kirby can be reached at tjkirby@fas.harvard.edu.