In Steady Hands

After helping the Harvard women’s softball team cruise to an 11-1 Ivy mark and a berth in the 2000 NCAA tournament, Crimson coach Jenny Allard was unsure how her 2001 team, a squad ripe with fresh and inexperienced talent, would perform.

“We were starting freshmen,” Allard says. “Everybody in the infield was a freshman pretty much that year.”

With ten rookies on the roster and the loss of major players like shortstop Deborah Abeles ’00, the 2000 Ivy Player of the Year, the season started with few guarantees.

But concerns were quickly answered. Allard led her team to a second straight Ancient Eight title with an 11-3 conference record.

“We had some preseason success and had a really good run,” Allard says. “I think that team overachieved and played above their talent.”

Twelve years later, Allard yet again has a young, inexperienced team this season.

“I think with a young team, the focus is gaining a lot of experience,” Allard says. “Physically, at any one point in time there are only two, three, [at most] four, players in the lineup who were in last year’s game.”

While her team is young, Allard herself does not lack experience. The coach, now in her 19th year with the Crimson, is the longest-serving coach in the Ivy League. As a player at the University of Michigan, she transitioned to pitcher to fill a vacancy during her junior year despite having previously started as a third baseman. She went on to be named Most Outstanding Pitcher by the team.

Discipline and routine prove key to Allard’s success with the game.

“The game’s the same,” Allard says. “The process is the same. You need your pitching, you need good defense, and you need timely hits. That formula is the same no matter whom you’re playing.”

After winning two straight Ivy League championships, this year’s team enters the Ivy season without five graduated seniors, including former starting pitcher Rachel Brown ’12, who was named Ivy League Pitcher of the Year last season.

With their departures, starting roles have been given to sophomores and freshmen.

“The second the seniors graduated, we knew that there were going to be spots open,” sophomore pitcher Gabrielle Ruiz says. “If you’re going to be the best one to fill that spot, you’re going to fill it.”

Ruiz and freshmen Morgan Groom and Jamie Halula have assumed key roles on the mound. The trio has seen the majority of playing time thus far this year.

“The freshmen have stepped up,” Ruiz says. “Coach [Allard] has been great—she treats us all the same. No matter who you are, if you’re the best, you’re going to play. That’s been the idea this year.”

Leadership has been a key factor in guiding younger players as they adjust to the college game. On a roster with few seniors starting, leadership on the field is in the hands of younger players.

For the first time since 2006, the team is captained by a junior, outfielder Shelbi Olson. Olson spent most of last season starting in right field.

In the infield, Allard points to junior Kasey Lange as a guiding light. Lange was named Ivy League Rookie of the Year in 2011 and has been named to the first All-Ivy team for two years running at third base.

“We’re really trying to push Kasey to be a leader out on the field and really command the infield and help make decisions out there,” Allard says.

While the onus to win rests on her players, Allard views her own role as a coach as lying in a delicate equilibrium.

“With a team that has had less experience, you need to balance your expectations with their growth,” Allard says. “I think patience can be very key with that role. You don’t want to be too patient such that you allow them to continue to make a lot of mistakes ,but you don’t want to have so many expectations that they can’t meet them.”

The team battled at the beginning of the season, starting 5-9 in its three road-trip tournaments in March. Occasionally, the team’s performances in losses have disappointed Allard. On March 24, the team lost to Syracuse in the tenth inning when a wild pitch helped the Orange snag a 5-4 victory.

“Currently, we’re in a period of frustration because we should be playing better than we are,” Allard says. “We aren’t making necessary adjustments because we feel as a team that we haven’t had enough time to make those adjustments.”

Again, Allard looks to the past, back to that 2001 championship team.

“[In 2001] they really came together as a team and I think that’s the challenge where this team is—to play above where their talent is,” Allard said. “We haven’t done that yet.”

—Staff writer Cordelia F. Mendez can be reached at cordeliamendez@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter at @CrimsonCordelia.