With the softball season well under way, Cornell and Dartmouth lead the Ivy League and prove they’re the teams to beat.
Dartmouth (13-13, 6-2) leads the North Division following its sweep (13-7, 12-7) of Princeton on Saturday and split with Cornell on Sunday. The Big Green’s Ashley Gleason and Devin Lindsay helped push their team to the top with timely hitting and exceptional pitching throughout the weekend, respectively earning the Ivy Player of the Week and the Pitcher of the Week titles.
Contributing to Dartmouth’s first win over Princeton since 2001 and its first over Cornell since 2005, Gleason had a .471 batting average with eight hits, including a double, two home runs, and 10 RBIs. Gleason followed two key plays, helping her team rally in both games against Princeton, in addition to a walk-off home run in the 10th inning of the opener against Cornell. Lindsay (6-5) added to the powerful Big Green performance, pitching 14.1 innings over the course of the weekend. After facing 24 batters in the win against the Tigers, she took on 44 batters over 10 innings against the Big Red. With a .321 batting average, Molly Khalil continues to lead the Big Green in hitting. This weekend, the freshman went three for four with three runs and three RBIs in Dartmouth’s 13-7 win over Princeton.
In game two against Dartmouth, the Big Red avenged themselves on the Big Green for the previous 10th-inning upset. Cornell outhit Dartmouth 14-5 to capture the win with a final score of 10-2. Elise Menaker and Devon March led the Big Red, going three for four at the plate. Menaker led off the third with a solo home run and March followed soon after with a home run of her own in the sixth to put Cornell up 9-2.
Cornell (27-7, 6-2) also split with Harvard on Saturday. The Big Red took the first game 3-0 but fell in the second 6-5. Leading Cornell’s batters in game one, Ashley Garvey went three for three with two RBIs, while Vanessa Leonhard also drove in a run. Elizabeth Dalrymple struck out nine batters to earn the win. In game two, Harvard (19-9, 5-3) started strong to make up for its disappointing shutout, but Cornell continuously rallied, coming to within two runs of the Crimson. Yet Rachel Brown shut down the Big Red offense to earn her second save of the season.
In a rematch of last year’s Ivy League championships, Princeton (8-14,3-5) rebounded from its loss to Dartmouth in the first half of its doubleheader against Harvard, but eventually fell in the second face-off. The Tigers, last year’s Ivy League champions, edged out Dartmouth in a close pitcher’s duel, winning 1-0. Princeton’s Michelle Tolfa picked up the one-hit shutout and Brown was forced to take the loss, despite giving up only two walks and two hits. Whitney Shaw, Harvard’s third straight Ivy Rookie of the Week, led the Crimson in game two versus the Tigers, hitting two home runs and driving in four. She hit .389 for the week (7-18) with a .476 on-base percentage. Against Cornell, Shaw hit the first-inning two-run homer, giving the Crimson the lead and the momentum to take the game 6-5.
Penn (9-1-1, 4-4) split with Brown (9-15, 3-5) on Saturday before the Quakers’ complete sweep of Yale (14-6, 3-5) on Sunday. The Quakers dropped the first game against the Bears 9-7 but came back in the second to capture the victory, 9-1. The first match featured five different lead changes as the Quakers and Bears battled it out over seven innings. The sixth inning saw the most action as Penn went up for the final time, before Brown put five more runs on the board. Penn, however, returned with a vengeance in the second matchup, achieving a season-high 16 hits for nine runs. Jessie Lupardus allowed just one run and struck out eight for the win.
Riding off the momentum from the win, the Quakers came out on Sunday ready to take on the Bulldogs and swept Yale 3-0, 8-7. The first game was tied at zero until the Quakers scored on a fielding error in the fifth to take the 1-0 lead. The Red and Blue added two more in the sixth, when Meg Krasne singled, driving in two runs. Lupardus pitched all seven innings for Penn, striking out five. While the Bulldogs outhit the Quakers 7-4, they were unable to capitalize on their hits.
Yale was ready to make a comeback in the second game, but while up 7-5, the Bulldogs soon lost their opportunity. In the seventh inning, Penn’s Kelsey Wolfe hit a triple with the bases loaded, clinching the win for Penn.
Columbia (12-20, 2-6) sits at the bottom of the league heading into this weekend’s contest after dropping two games to Yale on Saturday and one to Brown on Sunday.
The opener against Yale was a close matchup, but in the end the Bulldogs emerged victorious. A three-run seventh-inning rally ended with Yale’s Meg Johnson hitting a single with the bases loaded—dashing Columbia’s hopes for a rebound. The second game was not as close as the first, as the Bulldogs got on the board in the first inning and again in the third to shut out the Lions.
In the first Brown matchup, Columbia’s two runs in the seventh helped clinch the 6-5 victory. With a single to second base, Dani Pineda brought home both Anne Marie Skylis and Kayla Lechler to give the Lions the win. Game two was not as close as Brown defeated Columbia 12-3. Kelsey Wilson (three for four) led the Bears offense with three RBIs and two runs scored. In the doubleheader, she went five for seven, batting .714. She now leads Brown in both doubles and RBIs with nine and 14, respectively.