They had hoped that things would go better, but they didn't. For once, they wanted to come out on top in the close one, but it just didn't happen.

The members of Harvard's softball team (12-24) hit the road on Tuesday to take on West Hartford (20-14) only to come up short in both matches.

"It's pretty frustrating," senior outfielder Nicole Desharnais said. "I felt like we were well-matched against them, but it just didn't happen for us."

Game one, which was forced into twelve full innings, found the Crimson on top of its stride. The Crimson scored easily in the second and fourth innings to go ahead 3-0. Senior Christine Vogt led the offensive drive for Harvard, going two-for-four with two RBIs.

Hartford stayed scoreless until the bottom of the fourth, when it drove in two runs to cut the deficit to one 3-2.

For the next eight innings it was a hard fought defensive battle.

Harvard allowed one run in the bottom of the fifth. Then neither team plated a runner again until Hartford scored on a heartbreaker in the bottom of the twelfth.

"We played pretty solid ball," Desharnais said. "I thought the defense worked hard all day."

The defense was fired up in game one by senior Ann Kennon, who had nine put-outs, and short stop Amy Reinhard, who contributed a selfless three-put-out, eight-assist performance.

After a tough loss in game one, the Crimson shot out of the gate early in game two, going up 2-1. In the first inning, Desharnais (1-3) smacked a triple to bring teammate Sarah Cushman home. Kennon's sacrifice fly drove Desharnais in to put the Crimson up by two.

After West Hartford retaliated with one run in the bottom of the first, Harvard scored what was to be its final run of the day in the top of the second to set the count at 3-1.

The bats then more or less subsided for both teams until the bottom the sixth. Hartford's lead-off litter connected on her second home run of the day, and her teammates followed with a string of his which left the Crimson down by three, 6-3.

After Hartford's four-hit dream inning, the game was called--questionably--due to darkness. Despite objections from both coaches, the contest ended and the Crimson's hopes for retaliation in the seventh were quelled.