With the Crimson facing No. 18 Washington in the biggest game in Harvard softball history, there was one player the Crimson coaching staff could trust to face down the Huskies.

“In some ways on the mound, [Rachel Brown] was a security blanket for us—we knew Rachel would keep us in every game,” Harvard coach Jenny Allard says. “That was a great feeling to have: Every time you showed up and Rachel was on the mound, you knew you were going to be in the game.”

As a co-captain and two-time Ivy League Pitcher of the Year, Brown had led the Crimson to its second consecutive Ivy League title and now to an NCAA regional final, further than any Ancient Eight team since 1996.

Brown pitched the complete game and held the Huskies to one run in the first three innings. But Harvard’s offense was unable to get on the board and succumbed to a 4-0 shutout.

“I have no regrets about my senior season,” Brown says. “I think my senior class was on a mission, and each year we wanted to improve. In our final regional tournament we had a really great showing for Harvard softball.”

The loss to the Huskies was Brown’s final game and ended one of the most decorated Crimson softball careers of all time. For the rest of the senior class, it was the end of the most successful four years in Harvard history.

“You have got a lot of pride as a coach to see how players grow over their career,” Allard says. “It’s not what they accomplished in one particular year. The success that last year’s team had in getting to a regional final wasn’t just one year’s success, it was four years’. It was because Rachel Brown got better over four years…all those seniors got better over four years.”

THE GRADUATE

However, for Rachel, the Washington game was not to be the end of her softball career. The game she had played her entire life and had such success with was something she was not quite ready to part with.

Instead of retiring, Rachel became an assistant coach with the Stony Brook Seawolves.

“I wasn’t quite ready to give the sport up,” Brown says. “It had been such a huge part of my life, and so this [position] seemed like a great opportunity to kind of stay involved, and it’s also a great opportunity while I’m working on my master's as well.”

Amidst her job as assistant coach, Brown is pursuing a Master's in Higher Education Administration through the School of Professional Development at Stony Brook.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE POND

Before the coaching job opened up, Brown had chosen an unusual path for the standard Harvard graduate. Immediately after graduation, she packed up her bags and headed to Sweden for four months to play for the Skövde Saints.

“It was an incredible experience,” Brown says. “I got to be a kind of player-coach because the sport is really underdeveloped there. So it was both fun, and it was an incredible opportunity.”