The Harvard softball team has a knack for creating drama out of the blase. YALE 1 HARVARD 2 YALE 3 HARVARD 9 BROWN 1 HARVARD 3 BROWN 6 HARVARD 7
Facing mediocre competition in Yale (18-12-1, 0-2 Ivy) and Brown (6-20, 1-3), Harvard (12-11, 4-0) had to come back from three deficits in order to sweep four games this weekend at Soldiers Field. The Crimson swept a doubleheader from the Elis on Saturday, 2-1 and 9-3, and took two from the Bears yesterday, 3-1 and 7-6. "I think that these wins were abonding experience," said Harvard Coach JennyAllard, "I was very proud of our heart and ourdetermination. I just think it would make iteasier on ourselves if we score a few more runs orend it when we need to." Harvard sophomore pitcher Chelsea Thoke (7-6)was phenomenal all weekend, earning three of thefour victories. Thoke struck out 27 batters in21.1 innings and gave up only four earned runs. Co-captain Terri Teller led the Crimson'soffense with a gutsy weekend performance. Tellerwent 5-for-6 on Saturday and scored thegame-winning run in yesterday's nightcap with adaring sprint to the plate on a wild pitch inextra innings. Harvard now sits atop the Ivy League standingswith eight conference games remaining. The Crimsonhas won eight in a row and has run its Ivyregular-season winning streak to 23 games and itshome winning streak to 16 games. Harvard 7, Brown 6 (8 Innings) The Crimson won its final game of the weekendon the legs of its two catchers. The bats ofTeller and junior Mairead McKendry are always inthe lineup--one serves as the designated playerwhenever the other catches--and this strategy paiddividends yesterday. Teller stood on third with two outs in thebottom of the eighth inning and the score tied6-6. McKendry stood at the plate and swung at apitch in the dirt, but in so doing, she distractedBrown catcher Sara Rowbottom, who failed to fieldthe ball cleanly. Although the ball was lying just inches fromthe plate, Rowbottom could not find it. Tellerheaded home and, as Rowbottom desperately lungedat her, slid in head-first and touched home withthe game-winning run. "[Teller] saw the ball go to the right of thecatcher, and she just took off," Allard said. "Shejust reacted. She wanted the game, and that's justtrue heart." There would not have been an eighth inningwithout another heads-up play by McKendry. Withtwo outs in the bottom of the seventh and Harvardtrailing 6-5, McKendry started a rally with asingle to left field and moved to second on juniorGhia Godfree's bloom hit into left. Junior Jessie Amberg then sent a soft grounderto second and beat the throw to first as Brown'sJulia Tudicello double-clutched on her throw.McKendry rounded third and alertly broke for home.Brown first baseman Alyson Grant threw home, butMcKendry slid under Rowbottom's tag to send thegame into extra innings. Extra innings seemed a distant thought in thetop of the first. Brown rocked Harvard starterfreshman Julie Schwab for three runs, including atwo-run home run by Erin Connors. Freshman SuzanneGuy came on in relief of Schwab, but her dayquickly ended after three straight singles andanother run for the Bears. Thoke then came in and took control. She struckout Jenny Purchase to end the first and fannedseven more Bears over the next seven innings.Thoke would not give up a run until the seventh. "It just wasn't [Schwab's or Guy's] day today,so I had to step up," Thoke said. Meanwhile, the Crimson clawed its way back intothe game. After an Amberg RBI single got Harvardon the board in the second, a pair of two-rundoubles by freshman Sarah Koppel and Godfree gavethe Crimson a 5-4 lead after three. It stayed that way until the top of theseventh, when Thoke loaded the bases, and onestrike away from the victory, gave up a two-RBIsingle to Aleana Sutton that put the Bears infront. "It was the wrong pitch to pitch," Thoke said."I should have gone in on her, and she probablywould have struck out or popped up, so I was veryupset at myself for doing that." The defensive play of the game belonged tofreshman second baseman Cherry Fu who dived tosnare a line drive that had deflected off ofGodfree's glove in the top of the fourth. Koppel, Godfree and Amberg each went 2-for-4with two RBI, and Teller had a 2-for-5 performancewith two runs scored. Harvard 3, Brown 1 The Crimson had a less formidable deficit toovercome in the first game of the doubleheader,but once again it waited until late in the game toclear the hurdle. A second-inning sacrifice flygave Brown a 10 lead that it held until the sixth. "We've always had problems with Brown," Allardsaid. "We've always played them tight, but itsurprised me that we didn't hit them a littlebetter. We just weren't swinging at good pitches." That changed in the sixth inning, or the inningof the RBI double. Koppel led off the frame with awalk, and senior Karen Rice came in to pinch-runfor her. McKendry moved Rice to second on asacrifice bunt, and Harvard's bats came alive. Godfree began the party by ripping a double intoright field past a diving Kristen Marshall, whowent airborne in an effort to make the play. Ricescored on the hit. Fu followed and laced a doubleinto the right-centerfield gap to plate Godfree. Thoke kept the inning alive with a bloomsingle into right, and senior Tara LaSovage thenstroked a double of her own into left-center fieldto drive Fu home. Three runs were more than enough insurance forThoke, who was simply overpowering. She scatteredfive hits over seven innings and fanned 10batters, including striking out the side in thefifth. "Chelsea's a competitor, and I know that I cango to Chelsea for two games if I need to," Allardsaid. "She's been a solid force for us all season.When we've needed her, she's been coming through." Koppel had another good performance at theplate, going 2-for-2, LaSovage went 3-for-4 in thegame with an RBI. Harvard 9, Yale 3 Even in its most convincing victory of theweekend, the Crimson had to overcome an earlydeficit, Yale jumped out to a 3-0 lead against Guyin the first inning, but Harvard did not wait longto respond. The Crimson capitalized on several mistakes bythe Elis and used some timely hitting to scorefour runs in the bottom half of the first andthree more in the second. LaSovage started thingsin the first when she reached base after lining ahit off Yale third baseman Haley Flynn's glove andstealing second. Freshman Lisa Watanabe followed with a grounderto short, but Kathy Ching threw high to first,allowing Watanabe to reach and LaSovage to scoreHarvard's first run. After Watanabe advanced tosecond on a wild pitch, Harvard co-captain DeborahAbeles smashed on RBI double off the fence in leftfield. Abeles advanced to third on another wild pitch,Teller walked and Koppel singled to right to plateAbeles and tie the game at 3-3. McKendry thencrushed a towering single to the left-field fencethat loaded the bases. Two outs later, McKendrytrotted home on the third wild pitch of theinning. "We know we can [score like that] in everygame," Abeles said. "I think we expect that, soI'm glad we got it going." The following inning, LaSovaga started anotherflurry by ripping the first pitch she saw into theright-field corner for a leadoff triple. LaSovagescored when Watanabe grounded to third and thethrow across the diamond was dropped. Abeles drove Watanabe in with a high doubleinto right field. Teller's single up the middleplated Abeles, and Harvard was in control of thecontest, 7-3. "We're playing well and hitting the ball well,"Teller said. "It's always good to beat Yale;they're one of our big rivals." Guy, meanwhile, had settled down on the mound.The freshman pitched a stellar game, surrenderingfour hits and striking out four in seven inningsof work. At one point, Guy retired 10 batters in arow. "[Guy] was a little nervous at the start, butshe totally bounced back," Teller said. "She wasdominant for the rest of the game, keeping theball low and out." The Crimson amassed 13 hits against the Elis,led by Abeles's 4-for-4, three-RBI performance.Teller and LaSovage each went 2-for-3, and Telleradded two RBI while LaSovage scored twice. Harvard 2, Yale 1 The first game of the weekend saw Harvardcollect 10 hits but muster only two runs as keyhits proved difficult to come by. But once againtwo runs were enough for the win behind Thoke'sdominant pitching. The sophomore hurler allowed only one earnedrun in a complete-game two-hitter. Thoke walkedfour and struck out nine. Harvard took a 1-0 lead in the second inningwhen Amberg's single to right scored Teller fromthird. The Crimson doubled that advantage in thesixth when Fu's infield single plated McKendry. Yale would score its only run in the seventhwhen junior Ginger Dunn led off with a triple andlater scored on sophomore Monica Lebron'sgroundout to second. But Thoke then struck outAlice Liu to end the game. "We should have hit more," Abeles said. "Ithink we were a little nervous, but once we gotmore relaxed hits started to come." Thoke received plenty of defensive help,highlighted by a pair of gems in the fourthinning. Yale junior Kathy Ching led off the fourthby stinging a Thoke offering down the first-baseline. Godfree made a backhand stab at the ball,scooping it up nicely, and stepped on the bag forthe first out. One out later, sophomore Kristen Maturo roped aball toward the line in right that looked like itwould surely fall in for a hit. But Koppel camecharging in and made a gorgeous tumblingshoestring catch to rob Maturo and end the inning. HARVARD, 2-1at Soldiers Field
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