As the Harvard softball team heads into today's cross-town contest against Boston University, it will have fingers crossed.

Not only has the Crimson compiled an impressive 14-8 record so far, but Harvard's road trips have been remarkably free mishaps this season.

It hasn't always been so peaceful.

In recent years, road trips have been complete with tales of missing players, bizarre injuries, near-road collisions and apocalyptic weather patterns.

The trail of misfortune began with the team's 1990 Spring Break trip to Houston.

The trip left a legacy now carried by the survivors, including current seniors Julie Fromholtz and Liz Resnik and juniors Chris Carr, Katie Fitta and Nancy Johnson.

During the team's match this year at Princeton, softball alumna Jen Clawson '91 exhibited the typical denial syndrome: "Unit I visited California last summer, I'd never been west of the Mississippi."

"Uh, Jen," a former teammate asked. "what about the nine days you spent in Houston?"

Oh, yeah...

Houston had been suffering a drought for four weeks prior to the softball teams arrival. Nice weather for softball, right?

As soon as the squad touched ground (and incidentally discovered that its vans had been rented from the wrong airport) it started to rain.

The rain didn't really stop the whole time Harvard was in the Lone Star State.

While suffering through rain delays, Harvard seldom left the hotel long enough for the maid to change the sheets. Occasionally, team members wandered aimlessly around a local mall or sat through multiple viewings of Pretty woman.

On the field, the Crimson didn't fare much better, dropping most of its games by wide margins and losing future All-Ivy pitcher Carr to a season-long Injury.

Clawson ("never been west of the Mississippi" Clawson) also fell victim to tumbleweed cleverly disguised as an outfield fence. While chasing a fly ball, she flipped over it and suffered a severely bruised hip.