Crimson Seeks Revenge at Home

At first glance, it seems like an ordinary pair of league doubleheaders. But with Princeton coming to town this weekend, the Harvard softball team has something to prove.

“We always get up for Princeton, but this year especially, we’ll definitely be out for revenge,” co-captain Bailey Vertovez said. “We want to score in that first, second inning, and show them that we’re a better team than we were last year. They’ve already had two losses, so we want to hand them two more.”

The Tigers (7-11, 2-2 Ivy) unceremoniously ended the Crimson’s (17-7, 3-1) season with a two-game sweep of the Ivy League Championship Series last May. Now, Harvard has Princeton just where it wants it: in Cambridge.

“We’re just really excited to get on our home field, having our fans there, hopefully having a lot of good support,” co-captain Hayley Bock said. “I’ve had to play Princeton and Cornell away for the last three years, so I’m really excited to have this rivalry at home.”

The Crimson and Tigers open their twinbill on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. on Soldiers Field, but first Harvard will take on league-leading Cornell (25-5, 4-0) in a pair of games tomorrow. The first pitch is scheduled for 12:30 p.m.

The Big Red rolls into the weekend winners of 14 straight, including a dominating four-game sweep of Yale and Brown last weekend, in which Cornell outscored its opponents, 33-5.

“Cornell’s always a huge rivalry for us,” Vertovez said. “The way that we play is completely different from our style—they have more of a baseball style.”

The Big Red’s potent offense is powered by juniors Elise Menaker and Ashley Garvey. Menaker is hitting .384 through 28 games with five homers and 28 RBI, and has taken home Ivy League Player of the Week honors twice already this season.

Garvey, the reigning Ivy Player of the Week, leads the team in hits, dingers and RBI, with 34, six and 32, respectively. In Cornell’s opening Ivy weekend, she hit .615 with two home runs and two doubles.

The Crimson will counter with the Ivy League Pitcher of the Week, freshman Rachel Brown, who will lead the pitching staff as it tries to shut the Big Red bats down.

Brown has been dominant through the first half of her rookie season, coming into the weekend with an 11-1 record, a 1.00 ERA, and 124 strikeouts—a total that puts her tied for tenth on the Harvard career list.

In her first two Ivy tests, Brown sparkled, starting with a complete-game, one-hit shutout of Columbia and following up with another win at Penn. For the weekend, she struck out 26 while allowing just one run on eight hits.

“We think Rachel will be a great matchup for [Cornell], because her ball goes up while they swing down,” Vertovez said. “We hope [she] will give us two more stellar performances on the mound, quiet their bats, and make it fun to watch.”

Equally important to the Crimson’s success this weekend will be its ability to find its offensive rhythm. While Harvard’s hitters struggled to produce runs against Columbia, the team found its stride against Penn, with every starter recording at least one hit in the doubleheader. The Crimson continued to roll yesterday against Rhode Island, ripping off 21 hits in a twinbill sweep.

“Our pitching and defense keeps us in games, but our offense needs to win it,” Bock said. “We need to make sure that everyone has quality at-bats, and we just need to string the hits together and hopefully score a lot of runs, so on defense we can play even more relaxed.”

Rookie first baseman Whitney Shaw leads the team with a .317 average, while four Harvard sluggers have already reached double digits in RBI. Junior center fielder Stephanie Krysiak, who is also a Crimson sports editor, has been on fire of late, hitting .526 last week to earn a place on the Ivy League Honor Roll.

Harvard’s offense will look to exploit Princeton’s weaknesses in the circle. With the graduation of Kristen Schaus, last year’s Ivy Pitcher of the Year, the Tigers have been relying on just two hurlers, junior Jamie Lettire and sophomore Michelle Tolfa, to carry the team.

On the offensive end, senior Kathryn Welch paces Princeton with a .453 average, 29 hits, and 19 RBI.

But no matter who’s in the other dugout, or how much history there is to settle, the Crimson is focusing on the one thing it can control: its own play.

“I think being fearful of an opponent isn’t beneficial, [and] seeing that an opponent has lost a bunch of games can make you overconfident or play down to a team’s level,” Bock said. “I just try to focus on Harvard softball. As long as we do that and keep the game at our own pace, we’ll be successful against any opponent.”

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.