Junior pitcher Rachel Brown went 3-0 on the weekend and is 6-0 on the young campaign. Thanks to Brown's efforts, the Crimson only dropped one out of four games in the first leg of the team's West Coast trip.
Harvard softball is quickly becoming the Rachel Brown show.
At the UC Riverside tournament that started on Friday to kick off the team’s spring break California road trip, junior Brown clinched all three of Harvard’s victories.
More impressively, Brown has earned the decision in every Crimson (6-3) win so far this year.
Harvard took its first three games against UC Riverside (6-15), North Dakota (4-13), and St. Louis, before falling to the Billikens (14-9) in a rematch in the last game of the tournament.
Brown went 3-0 on the weekend, striking out 29 during two starts and two relief appearances. She walked seven and surrendered only four earned runs.
“I think she was really composed. She had a great rhythm in her routine. She mixed her pitches well, and focused pitch-to-pitch,” Harvard coach Jenny Allard said.
ST. LOUIS 5, HARVARD 3
The Crimson fell into an early hole, and the team was never able to catch up to St. Louis in the second game between the two in as many days.
Junior Julia Moore struggled on the mound and picked up her second loss of the year to move to 0-2. Brown came in after an inning and a third, and despite another strong performance, Harvard couldn’t close the one-run deficit.
“Julia Moore got the start today, and she was really settled in and throwing good pitches,” Allard said. “They just had her timed.”
After surrendering a run in the first, co-captain Ellen Macadam tied the game with a lead-off home run. But Moore was charged with three runs in the top of the second—two of which came around to score after the junior was pulled—and the Billikens were able to hang on.
The Crimson scored twice in the bottom of the same inning but did not plate a runner during the rest of the afternoon, leaving nine stranded on base. A St. Louis insurance run in the top of the seventh all but sealed a Billiken win.
“I think we obviously had a disappointing last game,” Brown said. “I think it’s kind of tough to mentally practice those game situations, so it takes a little bit of time to warm up. I have confidence that we’re going to get there.”
HARVARD 6, NORTH DAKOTA 1
Macadam went 3-for-4 and Brown fanned 11 as Harvard easily coasted past the Fighting Sioux in the third game of the tournament.
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