In the bottom of the first, Groom hit Chavez and allowed her first of six base runners, but she pitched around the mistake and ended the inning on a soft grounder to Lantz.

Lantz walked to lead off the second, but Harvard could not get on the board again until the third. With no outs and Olson on first, Lange stepped to the plate and blasted one out of the park to put the Crimson up 3-0.

“I was just seeing the ball really well,” Lange said. “We were happy to score a couple runs as a team.”

Harvard’s final run came in the fourth, when Regan laid down a sacrifice bunt to bring home freshman centerfielder Zoe Galindo.

The Bears and the Crimson traded scoreless innings until the bottom of the seventh. Groom got the first two outs—including one of her seven strikeouts on the day—but got into trouble when she gave up a walk and hit the next batter. With two on and two out, freshman pinch hitter Jamie Pospishil singled on a liner to left, but sophomore catcher Katherine Appelbe tagged out the lead runner at home—on a rocket from freshman left fielder Haley Davis—to end the game.

“[Groom’s] stuff was breaking well,” Allard said. “The mistakes she made were because her pitches were moving too much, not that she was leaving over the plate to be hit.”

—Staff writer Hope Schwarz can be reached at hschwartz@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSchwartz16.