“She rounded third base, and we saw that she was crying, and we just started to cry because it was so emotional,” Brown said. “For her to be able to do that for the team—she had had a tough day at the plate before that—but to be able to come up in the clutch like that is truly inspirational.”
“Jen Fran hits a bomb—it was unreal,” Black added. “She knew that that could have been her last at-bat, and she didn’t want it to be. She proved that.”
The Crimson and Big Red each put a run up in the first inning. Cornell got on the board in the top of the inning with an Elise Menaker home run—one of just four hits Black allowed in 6.1 innings of work.
Harvard responded with a run of its own in the bottom of the first. Junior Ellen Macadam led off with a single to center field and moved to second on senior Stephanie Krysiak’s sacrifice bunt. Co-captain Melissa Schellberg, who is also a Crimson sports editor, brought Macadam home with a single to right.
CORNELL 3, HARVARD 1
The defending Ivy champions got things done in the first game of the series, snapping a 1-1 tie in the sixth to take a 3-1 win in a meeting of the Ancient Eight’s two best pitchers.
The Big Red crossed the plate first in the bottom of the third, after Amiraian got on base with a one-out double down the left field line. Two batters later, Shannon Crane drove her home with a single to center before Brown struck Menaker out to get out of the inning.
The Crimson tied things right back up in the fourth, when Krysiak got the rally going with a one-out double of her own. After Schellberg popped up and Shaw walked, Ferri brough Krysiak around with a single to left.
But from there, Dalrymple—who pitched every inning of the series—shut Harvard down, allowing just two hits over the final three innings.
“I have so much respect for her,” Brown said. “We had a lot of hits off of her, but we just didn’t string them together when we needed to, and I think that’s really a testament to Elizabeth’s pitching.”
Brown, who led the Ivy League with a 1.25 ERA in the regular season, did not fare so well against the Cornell offense.
Though the sophomore pitched her way out of a fifth-inning jam, Brown lost control in the sixth, walking in a pair of runs with the bases loaded. Black came in to get Intihar to fly out and end the inning.
“I’m disappointed in my performance in the first game,” Brown said. “Maybe it was being tired at the end of a long season, maybe a mental lapse, but Margaux really stepped up. She was incredible, and she’s my hero.”
—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.