Freshman Haley Davis followed up the record-breaking performance in the next inning with a homer of her own, and a single from junior captain Shelbi Olson four at-bats later drove in a pair of runs.

On the mound, Groom turned in another commanding pitching performance. After recording a one-hitter last week against Brown, Groom finished Saturday having surrendered six hits, zero earned runs and accumulating a career-high nine strikeouts.

“I think that she pleasantly surprised a lot of people,” Davis said of Groom. “She’s been working so hard and has made such a huge improvement on the whole. Coming into this season, all the hard work in the training room and extra hours of pitching has really shown. She has stepped up and fulfilled her role when we really needed her to.”

Dartmouth’s lone run came in the bottom of the seventh off an error from sophomore Crimson shortstop Emily Gusse.

The victory gave Harvard a chance to catch Dartmouth in the Ivy League North Division standings on Sunday as the two conference rivals traveled back to Cambridge for their final regular season double-header. After the Crimson dropped game two on Saturday, Allard was still comfortable with her team’s position heading into two must-win home games Sunday.

“Our goal [Saturday] was to bring it back and make [Sunday] matter, and we met that goal,” Allard said.

—Staff writer Michael D. Ledecky can be reached at mledecky@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @mdledecky.