Softball Splits Doubleheader with Dartmouth

The Harvard softball team entered the weekend needing to take three of four from Dartmouth in a home-and-home series to play for the Ivy League Championship Series next weekend. After a Saturday doubleheader in Hanover, N.H, the Crimson (22-22, 12-8 Ivy) was still in the hunt for the North Division title as it split its two games with the division-leading Big Green (25-18, 15-5 Ivy).

DARTMOUTH 7, HARVARD 1

After a commanding performance from freshman pitcher Morgan Groom in game one, the Crimson was unable to keep the defensive pressure going in the second leg of the doubleheader.

Harvard yielded 11 hits and six RBIs in its largest loss of its conference season before Sunday.

Freshman Jamie Halula and sophomore Gabrielle Ruiz split time pitching, giving up six and five runs, respectively.

Freshman Morgan McCalmon led the Big Green with three runs. McCalmon and sophomore Kristen Rumley each recorded three hits, and five other Dartmouth batters contributed a hit.

The Big Green broke through with two runs in the bottom of the second off a sacrifice fly from freshman Kelsey Miller with runners on second and third. Miller’s fly-out drove in classmate Katie McEachern from third base, and a Crimson error at third allowed McCalmon to advance two bases to score.

Dartmouth went on to record two-run innings in the fourth and sixth, in addition to a run scored on an RBI triple in the fifth from Miller.

The Big Green scoring spree included a homer to center from senior Hillary Hubert, who drove in sophomore pitcher Kristen Rumley.

Harvard recorded as many hits—five—as it had in game one, but struggled this time to convert those into runs. Senior Jessica Ferri was the only Crimson player to score on the day.

She came in on a sacrifice fly from sophomore Adrienne Hume in the fifth frame.

HARVARD 4, DARTMOUTH 1

Junior Kasey Lange broke the all-time Harvard career home run record as the Crimson opened Saturday’s doubleheader with a 4-1 win over the Big Green.

Lange hit her 29th career home run and 12th of the season in the top of the fourth to give Harvard a 1-0 lead. Lange leads the Ancient Eight this season with 43 runs batted in.

“She’s a gamer. She plays the game to win,” Crimson coach Jenny Allard said of Lange. “When she’s on the field, there’s a different energy on the field. She’s been a great leader on the field.”

Freshman Haley Davis followed up the record-breaking performance in the next inning with a homer of her own, and a single from junior captain Shelbi Olson four at-bats later drove in a pair of runs.

On the mound, Groom turned in another commanding pitching performance. After recording a one-hitter last week against Brown, Groom finished Saturday having surrendered six hits, zero earned runs and accumulating a career-high nine strikeouts.

“I think that she pleasantly surprised a lot of people,” Davis said of Groom. “She’s been working so hard and has made such a huge improvement on the whole. Coming into this season, all the hard work in the training room and extra hours of pitching has really shown. She has stepped up and fulfilled her role when we really needed her to.”

Dartmouth’s lone run came in the bottom of the seventh off an error from sophomore Crimson shortstop Emily Gusse.

The victory gave Harvard a chance to catch Dartmouth in the Ivy League North Division standings on Sunday as the two conference rivals traveled back to Cambridge for their final regular season double-header. After the Crimson dropped game two on Saturday, Allard was still comfortable with her team’s position heading into two must-win home games Sunday.

“Our goal [Saturday] was to bring it back and make [Sunday] matter, and we met that goal,” Allard said.

—Staff writer Michael D. Ledecky can be reached at mledecky@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @mdledecky.