The Wheaton softball team must know what it is doing. When a Harvard squad that humiliated B.U. and Brandeis by scores of 31-6 and 34-6 arrived in Norton. Mass., Saturday afternoon for a scheduled doubleheader, its hosts said they only intended to play a single game.
"Apparently there was an administrative mix-up." Crimson coach Kit Morris said later. "We expected to play two, but as soon as we got there, the Wheaton coach told me that she had contacted our athletic department earlier in the week to let them know that they only wanted to play one game against us."
As it turned out, the Wheaton nine shouldn't have been so timid. They didn't win, mind you, but they did become the first team in the Greater Boston area to hold the Crimson to less than 15 runs.
As a matter of fact, the Crimson took quite a scare, before finally putting together a seventh-inning rally to down Wheaton, 6-3, and up its season record to 4-2.
On the mound, Crimson ace Nancy Boutillier struggled a little at the outset, yielding all three Wheaton runs in the first three frames. Meanwhile, Boutilier's teammates were encountering more than their share of problems at the plate.
"We weren't hitting the ball well at all in the early innings." Morris said. "It seemed like we were popping up constantly."
The Crimson finally broke through in the fourth, when three Wheaton errors and an Flaine Holpuch single enabled the squad to put one run on the board. With two outs and the bases loaded, the Crimson had a chance to overcome the two-run deficit, but Boutilier popped out to the catcher, squelching the rally.
In the fifth, Holpuch knocked home co-captain Lisa Bernstein, bringing the score to 3-2.
A sixth-inning threat brought nothing but more frustration for the Crimson. Leading off the inning. Betty Ippolito received a free pass to first. Catcher Gill Raney followed with a single, and then Alissa Friedman walked to load the bases with nobody out.
In an attempt to tie the game. Morris ordered two suicide squeezes each of which produced one out and no runs. Wheaton easily recorded a third out and escaped from the inning unseathed.
The seventh and final inning arrived and what Morris called the "Pat Horne-Flaine Holpuch Show" got underway. As usual, the duo gave the Crimson attack the charge it needed, leading off the inning with back-to-back singles.
A wild pitch, two errors, two passed balls, a walk and a Gill Raney single later, the Crimson had tallied four runs and posted a 6-3 lead.
But it was not over set In the bottom of the frame. Boutilier tempted the Wheaton nine by allowing them to fill the sacks before she recorded the final out to nail down her third victory of the season. WP--White, 3; PS--Sheppard 2
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