The softball team completed its first-ever Ivy League sweep this past Sunday in Philadelphia, dominating Pennsylvania 9-4 and 11-1. The wins broke a six-game losing skid for the Big Green and returned confidence to a squad that has battled through an up and down season.
The wins brought a bright end to a weekend that started off as gray as the thunderheads that loomed over Philadelphia Sunday morning. The sky threatened rain, but the rain from the day before had stopped and the field was in playable shape.
Ignoring the chilly and inclement weather, the team focused on factors they could actually control, namely the outcome of the game.
A seasoned freshman class provided many of the highlights in the wins against the Quakers.
In the first game, Jenny Harsey '01 led the Big Green offensively. She was 3-for-3 at the plate with two doubles, one triple, four runs scored and a pair of RBIs. Classmate Carrie Sekela '01 also had three hits, including two doubles and two RBIs.
Pitcher Stacy Sanders '00 earned her sixth win of the season, scattering seven hits throughout the game and striking out two Quakers.
In the nightcap, Brianne Rideout '01 struck out six batters and walked only one for the win.
"Brianne threw a great game," Coach Steffany Bender said. "She had a string in there where she retired 13 or 14 batters."
Rideout's teammates backed her up with their bats as the Dartmouth lineup pounded out 15 hits in the game.
Carrie Hoverman '01 went 4-for-4 at the plate, smashing out two doubles and three RBIs.
"These two wins gave us a big chance to boost our team morale and momentum to take into our last week of the season, especially in the games against Harvard," Harsey said.
"You get days when the bats are there and the kids are confident," Bender said. "They knew they could hit the pitchers and they went out and they did it."
Saturday's outing at Cornell, unfortunately, was not one of those days.
The Big Green dropped both ends of another Ivy League doubleheader, 7-4 and 3-0.
In the first game, the squad tasted flashes of the hitting success they would have on Sunday, but their total output exemplified the cliche "too little, too late".
Cornell jumped out to an early 7-0 lead, but as Dartmouth has done so many times this season, the team fought back. In the seventh inning, Sekela started off the rally with a single. Co-Captain Bess Tortolani '98 followed up Sekela's rap with one of her own. Chiara Grabill '01 then hit a double to bring in Tortolani and Sekela.
Kate Winter '00 followed Grabill, hitting a single with two outs, allowing Grabill to score on an error by the centerfielder.
Harsey singled to score Winter, but that was as close as Dartmouth could come, and Cornell was able to come away with the win. Sanders took the loss for the Big Green.
In the second game, Dartmouth mustered only three hits, including doubles by Winter and Grabill.
After losing pitcher Laura Mills '00 to a knee injury during spring training and Co-Captain and pitcher Christina Maybaum '98 for the season with a jaw injury in a game against Boston University last week, the squad has had to depend a lot on Sanders and Rideout on the mound. Still, Bender expressed confidence in her team.
"Our pitching staff is deep enough to allow Stacy and Brianne to give it everything they've got," she said.
The Big Green will jump back into action today at 3 p.m. when they face the University of Vermont in Burlington. They will then close out their Ivy League schedule at home against Harvard on Saturday.
