The best teams in any sport usually manage to strike that delicate balance between young, unproven talent and tested veterans who provide the squad’s backbone and channel the collective effort in the direction it must go in order to yield success.

Some of Harvard’s toughest losses of the offseason were brought about by the departures of senior Monica Montijo, sophomore Ashley Augustine and junior Bre Cooley, leaving little depth to counter the infusion of youth.

“Although I understand and respect their decisions, they’re missed,” Harvard coach Jenny Allard says. “Their spirit is missed more than anything.”

In fact, only one senior will don the Crimson uniform this season looking to galvanize the team’s efforts to reclaim Ivy supremacy.

Although the challenge of balancing Harvard’s youth with experience is great, no one is better fit to rise to the challenge than tri-captain Tiffany Whitton, who just a year ago turned in the finest offensive display in Crimson history.

The Team Player

It didn’t always appear as if Whitton would be the sole senior on the squad. Just last season Montijo departed, paring the fourth-year count down to one.

“It’s been challenging,” Whitton says. “My class has been very interesting. I’ve seen five people come and go in my class.”

But despite the ever-changing chemistry and the disappearance of her classmates, Whitton has developed a level of comfort with her position few have shared.

“Senior is kind of just like a label,” Whitton says. “It’s a little bit different in that sense. On the field there’s no difference.”

Though it is just a label to her, the position of sole senior tri-captain carries with it additional responsibilities and burdens disproportionately placed on her shoulders.

“Tiffany more than anything sets a tone,” Allard says. “Tiffany sets a tone of ‘We’re going to be competitive, we’re going to come out here and do our best, I’m going to step up and do things when the team needs me to come through.’”

The Ivy title has always been more important to her than her personal accomplishments.

“She is a genuine person who often puts the team’s needs ahead of her own, and people will remember that,” says former tri-captain Mairead McKendry ’01.

And that is something McKendry has known from the outset. Though Whitton’s talent has certainly improved with age and practice, that character has been with her for some time.

“[Tiffany] attended a history course some of the softball players were taking [on her recruiting trip],” McKendry says. “She had brought some of her own high school work to do, but I had forgotten my notebook and a pen. As I looked around for someone to lend me a piece of paper and something to write with, Tiffany offered me her own pen and notebook. It was such a small gesture, with the most selfless implications.”

I Think She’s Alone Now

Despite her team focus, Whitton cleaned up when it came to collecting the hardware, receiving the 2002 Ivy League Player of the Year Award, First Team Northeast Regional All-American honors as well as the ECAC Tournament MVP award.

Whitton led the Ivies and placed sixth in the nation with a .457 batting average over the course of the season.

She topped the nation in RBI per game with 49 in 40 games while setting Crimson single-season and career homerun records, with 13 and 23, respectively.

And Whitton claims it all began with a bag of Skittles.

“It just started when I was in travel ball playing on a summer league team when I was a senior in high school,” Whitton says. “I was tired so I ate some skittles and I hit really well.”

But her prowess at the plate extends well beyond a fruity sugar rush.

Rather than swing with all her might on every pitch, looking to drive the ball as far as humanly possible, Whitton’s smooth stroke slices through the strike zone, driving the ball all over the diamond.

“I think as a result of her aggressiveness, as a result of her getting her body behind her swing, she adds a lot of power,” Allard says. “Her wrists are very powerful. I think technically, she has one of the best swings I’ve seen.”

But even the best of techniques doesn’t guarantee a base hit on a consistent basis.

It is Whitton’s mindset, or the lack thereof, that makes her swing so dangerous. When she’s at the plate, Whitton is thinking absolutely nothing, channeling out all the noise to focus just on the pitch.

“An assistant coach when I was in high school asked us ‘what goes through your head at the plate?’” Whitton says. “When I was in high school the best advice I’d ever gotten was to not think about anything.”

And the approach has worked to perfection for Whitton and the Crimson, as seen during last year’s career season.

But the law of averages dictates that with the good comes the bad. While exploding at the plate, Whitton was halted on the mound, unable to overcome a case of tendonitis to pitch.

“I miss it, but I think it was better for the team that I focus on hitting,” Whitton said.

Similar to the Babe himself, Whitton’s numbers offensively leapt through the roof once relieved of the burden of excelling in two dimensions of the game.

The additional focus on her swing, the extra energy from not having to pitch between at bats and the insights from her mound experience have all combined to give Whitton an edge every time she’s at the plate.

“That’s a great tribute to Tiffany: if you take something away that she’s capable of doing, instead of her whole game deflating, she picks up something in a different area,” Allard says. “She’s one of the most talented all-around players I’ve ever had, that’s safe to say.”

With such a performance already in the books, the pressure will be on Whitton this season to equal or better last year’s effort. And the primary source of that added stress may just be her internal monologue.

“I probably put a bit more pressure than I should on myself,” Whitton says. “Last year was kind of like a once in a lifetime thing. It’s kind of unfair to expect that much from myself, but if I could do it last year, why not again this year?”

But it’s that kind of intense pressure that puts into perspective just how special Whitton’s performance was last season.

“She’s in that upper echelon of a handful of kids that are some of the best I’ve coached,” Allard says. “What is unique about Tiffany is that though she is one of the best hitters I’ve coached, the reigning sentiment about her though is that she is the most multi-faceted athlete I’ve ever coached. I’ve never had a person that could step on the mound and pitch, be quick enough to play the outfield, have enough leadership to anchor first base and be good defensively and be able to step up and hit .400.”

Though this will be Whitton’s last season on the diamond, the effects of her stay will not soon be forgotten. There will be the new faces popping up in years to come thanks to Whitton’s play, not just at Harvard but throughout the Ivy League.

“When you have a kid in your program that has been Ivy Player of the Year and a solid reputation, [high schoolers] know that they’re going to a quality program, they know that there are quality kids there, they know that their level of competition needs to be high, they know that they’re going to a successful program,” Allard says. “It does two things—it steps up our own individual program, but it also elevates the league.”

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.