Despite facing two very tough opponents in Dartmouth and Harvard over the weekend, the softball team came out with a split, and heads into the week with a positive outlook. The Red took game one against Dartmouth on Friday afternoon in Hanover, N.H. with an impressive victory, 9-5, but was defeated in the second half of the doubleheader, 9-6. On Saturday, the road trip continued on to Cambridge, Mass., where Cornell again came out strong in game one with a dominating win, 8-1, but then dropped the second game later in the afternoon, 7-5.Although the team would have liked to get out of the weekend with a 3-1 winning record or even a four-win sweep, a split is still encouraging considering the opponents, according to junior infielder Erin Keene.“We played two of the toughest teams in the Ivy League,” she said. “We played great softball and we’re in good shape for the rest of the Ivy season.”“Both [Dartmouth and Harvard] have a strong offense and strong pitching staffs,” added senior starting pitcher and tri-captain Elizabeth Dalrymple. “We played really hard and we showed what we were capable of.”The theme for all four games was very similar. Cornell came out in all the games with early runs and was on the attack from the outset. In game one against Dartmouth, the Red had a total of 12 hits and held the Green offense scoreless, 8-0, heading into the sixth. Dalrymple worked through 6.1 innings and then later came back on to quell a late rally from Dartmouth to close out the victory. Dalrymple pitched again in game two and held the lead early with the Red jumping out, 4-0. They were not able to hold on as the team allowed Dartmouth to score nine runs, five of which were unearned.“The other team did a good job capitalizing on our mistakes,” Dalrymple said. “If I threw a bad pitch, they would capitalize on that.”Traveling to Cambridge, Mass. did not slow down the Red offense as the unit came out swinging again with five runs in the third inning. Dalrymple struck out ten in her 14th complete game of the season to improve to 10-4 on the season, holding Harvard down for the win, 8-1. The second game began with Cornell scoring in the first inning, but a Harvard pitching change limited the damage to one run and the score remained 2-1 in favor of the Crimson until the fifth inning when Cornell retook the lead, 4-2. Unfortunately for the Red, Harvard was able to rally back in the sixth with two outs to take the lead permanently, 7-4. The Red did threaten one last time, scoring one run to shrink the deficit to two, but left the game-tying run at the plate in the loss.In the four game set the Cornell offense came out swinging, with each batter in the lineup scoring a run and picking up an RBI.“We did a good job jumping on teams early,” Dalrymple said. “We put a lot of pressure on them early.”“Overall it was a great offensive effort,” Keene added. “All the hitters from one to nine were coming through with hits. I knew Harvard and Dartmouth were going to have good pitching and since the top of our lineup has been great at getting on base and has been doing their job, we just needed to do ours by hitting them in.”The Red came out aggressively, but was not able to finish out some of the games, as the rallies from the opposing teams were too much to handle. Cornell also started both days with a win in game one and could have secured a sweep, but instead came away with splits in both doubleheaders.“After a loss in game one, the other team came back with more force,” Dalrymple said. “Just because we won the first one doesn’t mean we’ll win the second. We learned to realize that the team that just lost wants revenge.”The Red will take these lessons into its midweek games against Syracuse and Albany with a doubleheader at Albany today beginning at 3:30 p.m., and another two-game set at Syracuse scheduled for Thursday. These games in the middle of the week will provide for more game situations rather than just low pressure practices, Dalrymple explained.“We would like to use these games to prepare for next weekend,” she said. “They are good competition for us and we will treat them as Ivy League games to help keep us sharp.”“Everybody will get playing time,” Keene said. “These games will help us refresh and work out the kinks.”
Original Author: Wankyu Lee