With three losses this past weekend, the softball team is officially out of the race for the Ivy League title.
Yale dropped both games of a doubleheader against Princeton, losing the first contest in extra innings 2-1 and the second 10-1. The Elis then split two games with Penn Sunday. The Quakers (13-32, 1-13 Ivy) prevailed in the first game 2-1 to log their first Ancient Eight win of the season, while the Bulldogs (19-19-1, 5-7 Ivy) rebounded nicely in the nightcap for a 17-1 victory.
Princeton (29-15, 13-2 Ivy) went on to sweep Brown Sunday, enabling them to clinch their first Ivy League title since 1996. For Yale, any championship hopes will have to wait until next year.
“From here on out, it’s just for pride because we’re out of it,” Yale captain Laura Beckert ’03 said.
In the first game against Penn, Quaker sophomore Nicole Borgstadt silenced the Eli batters. Only Shayna Filson ’04 was able to do some damage, as she hit her sixth homerun of the season.
Cara Denver ’02 was solid on the mound for the Bulldogs, but some costly errors allowed the Quakers to eek out the victory.
“They had a lot of heart,” Beckert said. “Even though they were 0-10 in the Ivies, they were ready to play [Sunday].”
But the Yale nine came back strong in the second game, opening up a 7-0 lead in the top of the third inning. In the third and fourth innings alone, Yale got 17 runs off of 15 hits.
“I think the first game was a little bit of shock to our morale, but the second game shows that we have the ability to come back,” said Jesseka Bartholomew ’03, who went 3-4 with three RBIs in the game.
Kristy Kwiatkowski ’05 also went 3-4 with four RBIs and Filson recorded the victory on the mound, improving her overall record to 4-6.
There was one dark spot for Yale during their two-inning offensive barrage. Right before the Elis rallied for seven runs in the third, second basemen Rina Brannen ’04 broke her foot sliding into third base.
Saturday at Princeton, the Elis came up against a Tiger team whose only Ivy loss came at the hands of second-place Harvard. In the first game, Bartholomew gave Yale an early 1-0 lead with a homerun in the first inning. But Princeton tied up the score on an Eli error in the bottom of the first, and the two teams then remained tied until Princeton manufactured the winning run in the bottom of the eight.
Princeton pitcher Brie Galicinao recorded the victory, improving to 14-6 overall. Denver took the loss for Yale, falling to 7-6.
Bartholomew said the team was disappointed it was not able to pull out the victory.
“Cara was able to keep their bats silent in the first game and their pitching wasn’t that strong either,” Bartholomew said. “Our hitting was good enough to win that game, we should have won.”
In the nightcap, the Tigers’ Kristen Del Calvo lit up the Bulldog pitchers for three homeruns, tying an NCAA record. Del Calvo’s team opened up a 7-1 lead after two innings, and the margin would prove to be insurmountable for the Elis.
Melissa Finney got the win for the Tigers, while Jillian Miles ’04 dropped to 8-6 with the loss.
Yale has one more Ivy League matchup left in the season. The Elis will take on Brown (11-18, 4-8 Ivy) Friday at Dewitt Family Field.