For the first time in Ivy League softball history, the conference released a preseason poll, voted upon by each institution’s media members, sports information directors, and the national media. Not surprisingly, the top spots went to the pair of teams who have scrapped each of the past two seasons in the Ivy League Championship Series. Princeton earned the highest perch with 10 first-place votes, while Harvard garnered five top votes of its own to come in second in the poll.

“I think it was interesting because obviously we didn’t know that they came out with that poll until we saw it,” junior shortstop Rhianna Rich said. “I don’t think in any way that alters our mindset. we’re not going to let the results or outsiders’ opinions kind of dictate how we’re going to play.”

In addition to ignoring the outside noise, the Crimson is also avoiding prematurely setting its sights on the Tigers in 2018 (if Princeton does manage to win the South Division, that is). Instead, Harvard is simply trusting the process.

“I think this season our big strength is that we’re taking a lot of time to focus on our mental preparation,” Rich said. “We’d really been refining our skills, but this year we know that we have the skills. We know that we have everything we need to win. It’s just a matter of coming mentally prepared.”

Each of the past two seasons, Crimson softball has fallen just shy of claiming the Ivy League title. Both times, Harvard made a spirited, late-season effort to clinch a place in the Ivy League Championship Series, only to run into the Tigers’ buzzsaw.

{shortcode-57179df56b57623880ff2e5c2ea1db5b08207c40}In recent years, Princeton has quickly surged to the top of the Ancient Eight. The Tigers went 14-6 in 2016, only to improve upon that mark with a 15-5 record the following year. Between its league championship in 2008 and 2015, however, Princeton mustered an unremarkable 60-79 record.

“Obviously the past two years we’ve faced them in the championship and fell short, and I would say this season we’re going to try not to focus on that fact when we face them during the Ivy League games or during the championship series possibly,” Rich said. “They always have a good team, a strong team, and they’ll definitely be a hard team to beat, but if we just focus on our game then I have full confidence that we’ll be able to pull it off.”

This time around, the Tigers remain the standard by which all other Ivy teams are measured. Princeton returns Megan Donahey and Allison Harvey, who teamed up for 100 hits last season. However, the Tigers lost top slugger Marissa Reynolds, who racked up eight long balls and hit .457 with an .886 slugging percentage. The defending champions also graduated both of their top pitchers, Erica Nori and Claire Klausner.

In the North Division, Dartmouth and Yale figure to be the Crimson’s major roadblocks in returning to the best-of-three championship round. Brown was picked seventh in the preseason poll and has been mired in a rebuilding phase after winning the league in 2004. The Big Green and the Bulldogs tied for second in the North with 10-10 records in 2017.

Harvard softball kicks off its 2018 season with a trip down to Orlando, Fla., to compete in the Citrus Classic. Every season begins with several tournaments far afield from the harsh conditions of New England in late February and early March. Generally, competition at these invitationals is fierce, and the schedule of games is unrelenting.

“Our preseason schedule is really tough,” Rich said. “We face a couple top-50 teams and a couple top-100 teams, and just being able to see that level of play will really prepare us to go into Ivies with better skills and with an overall better mental outlook.”

Perhaps the most important theme of the regular season after the conclusion of the non-conference trips is the parity within the Ancient Eight.

Allard remarked that she began to see a sharp increase in competitiveness within the conference about three years ago. Last season, Princeton paced the league with 15 wins, but no other team had more than 13 or fewer than six. Four out of eight schools settled within two games of a .500 record.

“I mean everyone’s more competitive,” Allard said. “You can’t take a weekend off and think that you’re just going to skate through a series. There’s none of that.”

Most years, the beginning of the season would lend itself to a detailed look at the incoming freshman class. However, this time around, there are just three new athletes donning Harvard’s uniform. Morgan Melito, Aubree Muse, and Alyssa Saldana comprise the entirety of coach Jenny Allard’s newest recruiting class. The veteran skipper of 24 years decided not to overload her team’s roster, with 18 players remaining from her 2017 squad.

“I think they’re adding the depth that we need,” Allard said. “We needed another corner player and strong hitter which we have in Morgan Melito, and then we have [utility player] Aubree Muse and [outfielder] Alyssa Saldana.”

Looking closer at the Crimson’s roster, it appears as though one of the major issues with the 2018 lineup will be a good problem to have. Junior Meagan Lantz, junior Erin Lockhart, and sophomore Olivia Giaquinto will all vie for at-bats at the two corner infield spots.

Lantz had an outstanding rookie campaign, batting .323/.375/.577 with seven home runs and 37 RBI. However, she suffered a season-ending ACL injury last preseason, leading to the emergence of Lockhart. Lockhart crushed seven homers in 2017 to go along with a .507 on-base percentage and a .619 slugging mark. Giaquinto also flashed a powerful bat as a freshman last season—in just 87 at bats, she launched seven home runs.

One potential remedy to this situation would be to deploy one of the trio as the team’s designated player, who could bat for any other player in the lineup. Though not all of this powerful core will be able to play the field, Allard will have to get each of them into the lineup to establish Harvard as a premier power-hitting team within the conference.

“We’ll figure it out,” Allard said. “All three of them have a lot of power, and if they’re hitting well we’ll figure out how to fit them all in.”

Rich and co-captain Maddy Kaplan figure to complement the above trio’s power with a more on-base heavy focus. Rich has tallied 120 hits in just two years, and last year she also experienced a marked defensive improvement at shortstop. Kaplan has already cemented her place as one of the best contact hitters in Harvard history with a .394 career batting average (fifth all-time) and a .454 OBP (tied for third all-time).

In the circle, Allard looks forward to the team’s increasing depth due to the recovery of a pair of hurlers from injuries that plagued the team in 2017. Both junior Sarah Smith and sophomore Alissa Hiener are ready to bolster the Crimson’s pitching, slotting in alongside junior Katie Duncan and Giaquinto, who will split time between hitting and pitching once again.

—Staff writer Jack Stockless can be reached at jack.stockless@thecrimson.com.