True to form, Boteler pitched in only one game but made the most of the occasion by heating Dartmouth on the Ivy League Championships and recording a 1.17 ERA.
After four years with the team, Boteler says without hesitation "I've gotten more out of softball than anything else at Harvard" Consequently she is disturbed by the fact that Wentzell is considering cutting the squad next season, thereby making it inaccessible to future Diane Botelers.
Coming from a high school that could barely put nine players on the field. Boteler arrived at Harvard unprepared to participate on the collegiate varsity level.
"If there were cuts my freshman year," says the team co-captain. "I would not have made it."
Unlike her fellow captain, Matne Schools has never had problems making the grade as an athletic, in face, she is one of only a few Harvard competitors to captain two different deans.
Despite this distinction, Schools has managed to keep a low profile within the Harvard community. Some might consider it for misfortune to pilot both the volleyball and softball team--two of the teasing least publicized squads--but Schoofs has always been content to remain away from the limelight.
A very quiet, introspective individual-she intends to me for Rotary to study philosophy-Schoofs prefers to think of herself as just another team member.
She rarely discusses her individual accomplishments, and it is entirely possible that she does not even remember most of them. But Schoofs can give a vivid account of any spectacular play that required a coordinated team effort.
"I'll always remember in the second Brown game this year when [second baseman] Alissa Friedman and I both dove for a line drive at the same time. I managed to knock it down and just above it into her glove. She was lying on the ground, but her foot was just touching her bag. I thought that play was really rest be cause it was as though we made the out foregather." she said.
A first busman during past seasons, Schools easily switched to short this year a position she played on her high school squad, which she says "was about as good as the team we have here."
And so in contrast with Boteler's experience, Schoofs added very little to her survive knowledge of softball while she played for Harvard. But competing with and then captaining two Crimson teams proved an educational experience in itself.
"Being Captain turned out to be a for more mentally demanding than I thought it could be," says Schoofs. "But the volleyball team and the softball team were both just club sports when I get here, and it's been very rewarding to see them develop into good varsity program.