Whitton is convincing evidence of the Ivy’s rising quality of softball. Her .388 average ranked among the top 50 in the nation last year.

“Tiffany is a legitimate division one player,” Allard said. “She hits for power, she throws consistently. She can play with the best of people.”

Her Stronghold

Whitton relies on her family for support and calls her mother and father back in California her “stronghold.”

“They’re the reason I’m here, and I go to them first with everything,” Whitton said.

She credits her teammates with making her captain duties easier, taking her in as a surrogate classmate after tri-captain Grace Bloodwell, catcher Monica Montijo, and utility player Wendy Ciovacco left the squad.

“I miss my classmates a lot, and looking to next year, it’s honestly scary to think I’ll be the only senior,” Whitton said. “But I try to put that behind me, and the other upperclassmen have really helped, making me feel very comfortable.”

Whitton has begun to form the same type of close bonds that she shared with her classmates with sophomores and seniors, but she is aware of the dearth of juniors at times.

Allard has each class year compete as a team during home run derbies before Ivy contests, and Whitton is at a disadvantage to say the least.

But the team and coaches have adapted by giving her extra pitches, and Whitton is able to beat the sophomores and seniors on her own.

“It’s really funny,” Allard said of the outcome. “Tiffany jokes like that. She’s good-natured about it. She doesn’t feel like she’s been abandoned.”

Whitton has meshed better with the other members of the squad after Allard named seniors Sarah Koppel and Lisa Watanabe as new captains. The once-burdensome responsibilities as the sole leader of the team are more manageable as part of a triumvirate.

“People were chipping in to help when I was captaining alone,” Whitton said. “Another great thing about Harvard is that I think there are a lot of natural leaders, and that helped, but it was still tough.”

According to Whitton, being a captain in high school is far less intense than in college, where there is more freedom and thus more responsibility.

Seeing her role as being a “mediator” or “representative” of each side, Whitton has tried to balance the coaching staff’s wishes with her team’s.