Sophomore infielder BREANNE COOLEY started off the seventh-inning rally with a one-out single.

A doubleheader full of ups and downs for the Harvard softball team ended with the most resounding kind of up—the walk-off grand slam.

In both ends of Saturday’s twin-bill against Princeton, the Crimson shook off the sting of crooked, late-inning deficits and staged defiant, last-chance rallies to pull close. After the first game’s rally fell short in a controversial 4-3 defeat, the pressure was on with a 4-2 seventh-inning hole in the second game. But Harvard showed no signs of anxiety in stringing together four straight hits to cut the deficit in half and load the bases.

A hundred-strong crowd—fixated on junior Tiffany Whitton as she stepped to the plate with two outs—went out of control as the Harvard tri-captain crushed the game’s final pitch over the right-field wall for a 7-4 victory.

Harvard Coach Jenny Allard, who vigorously instructed her players through every at-bat of the game-winning rally, coached to the last possible moment, excitedly waving home each of the runners from the third base box as Whitton’s ball left the park.

For the 2002 Crimson—a team that has outscored its opponents 28-6 in the seventh inning this season—the comebacks were nothing extraordinary.

“That is what has characterized this team—they just have tremendous heart,” Allard said immediately following the game. “They play as a team. They believe in themselves no matter what the score, no matter what the situation.”

Had the Crimson been swept by Princeton, it would have been buried in a nearly insurmountable two-game hole. But with the split, both Princeton and Harvard maintain control of their own destiny in the Ivy race. The Tigers (23-15, 9-1 Ivy) and Crimson (21-7, 7-1) each swept doubleheaders yesterday against Dartmouth (17-11, 4-4) and Penn (11-26, 0-10), respectively.

Princeton rounds out its Ivy schedule with home doubleheaders against Brown (7-18, 2-6) and Yale (17-5-1, 4-4). Harvard is on the road for the rest of its Ivy season with doubleheaders at Columbia (19-13, 4-4), Dartmouth, and defending Ivy co-champion Cornell (19-15, 4-4).

Harvard 7, Princeton 4

The grand slam was sweet redemption for Whitton, who gave up three runs as a pitcher in the sixth to blow a 2-1 lead that sophomore Kara Brotemarkle had maintained for five innings. She was grateful to her teammates, four of whom had to reach base for her to have another shot at the plate.

“I really felt like I owed it to the team,” Whitton said. “We worked so hard today and my pitching performance wasn’t really there. I can’t thank the team enough for rallying. Mine was the last hit, but everybody else deserves way more credit than I do, because they’re the ones who started it, not me.”

In both of the Harvard seventh-inning rallies, sophomore third baseman Breanne Cooley reached base first. There was no one better to have at the plate with a two or three-run last inning deficit than Cooley, who time and again stayed composed in the face of recent failure.

Since Princeton’s Melissa Finley had given up just one baserunner since the third, a Crimson comeback seemed distant when Cooley stepped to the plate with one out. But her timely hit made the comeback possible.

“I went up there just thinking to start a rally and my teammates pulled through,” Cooley said. “I mean I start a rally, I need someone else to pick me up, and that’s what they did. It was an unbelievable win.”

Next up, freshman Beth Sabin—who pitched a shutout seventh to keep the game close—came through with an opposite-field single. Sophomore shortstop Rachel Goldberg followed up with a single to right to load the bases for the top of the order.