Softball captures Ivy League title with sweeps of Yale and Brown

The goal of softball is a simple one — to score more runs than your opponent in seven innings. When the teams move to extra innings, the rule still applies though the game becomes more complicated. Anything can happen. The game becomes as much a psychological battle as a physical one, and the smallest mistake — mental or physical — can be the difference between a win or a loss.

In the first of four games for the softball team this weekend, the Tigers and Yale were tied 1-1 after seven innings, and went into extra innings. The sudden-death nature of extra innings was never seen as clearly as in the first game on Saturday afternoon, played on the Class of 1895 Field under drizzling, cloudy skies. Freshman Becky Nemec drove a pitch nearly out of the ballpark to win the game. The hit gave Princeton the push to get over the hurdle and beat Yale in the next game, 10-1, then sweep Brown Sunday afternoon, to win the team's first Ivy League championship since 1996.

Yale pitcher Cara Denver was handling the Princeton offense in the eighth inning of the first game Saturday afternoon, the speed of her pitches giving little sign of her having started the game some two hours earlier, when Nemec took her deep.

A half-inning before, senior pitcher Brie Galicinao, the Ivy League's strongest hurler, showed signs of fatigue from atop the mound. After giving up a home run in the first inning of the game, Galicinao was perfect from then until the eighth, striking out seven. She got into trouble in the eighth inning, however, allowing the Elis to advance runners to second and third base with two outs. Galicinao got out of the inning after Yale hit a sharp liner to Nemec at third, who threw out the runner at first.

With one out in the Tigers' eighth, freshman second baseman Kristin Lueke's slap-single to centerfield put a runner on first. Lueke was thrown out at second on a Del Calvo fielder's choice to Denver. Del Calvo just hit the first base bag as the ball hit the first baseman's mitt, keeping the inning alive with two outs. Senior shortstop Kim Veenstra hit a ball hard up the middle between the shortstop and the second baseman, and though the shortstop was able to field the ball she had no chance to throw out Veenstra or to lob the ball to the second baseman and throw out freshman outfielder Nicole Davida, pinch-running for Del Calvo.

Nemec stood at the plate with two outs. She was at the plate for the fourth time, having struck out twice against Denver. The freshman fouled back the first two pitches. On an 0-2 count with two outs, it seemed as if Yale might get another chance to pull ahead.

But the next pitch completely erased this possibility. Denver hurled a fastball that met Nemec's metal bat and was sent soaring through the chilly April air towards the right-field fence. The ball hit the top of the fence and stayed in, though Davida still managed to cross home to score the winning run.

"It would have been awesome if it had been a homerun," Nemec said. "But I'll take the double, or a single for that matter. It scored the run to win the game and that's what counts."

The Tigers made quick work of the Elis in the second game of the afternoon, sending Yale home after only five innings. Del Calvo belted three home runs — tying a NCAA record — and added 5 RBI to her stats in the 10-1 win. She now has 12 home runs on the season, which is five more than any other Tiger has hit in a single season in the team's 22-year history.

Sunday afternoon Princeton defeated Brown, 10-3 and 6-1, to win the Ivy League. Over the weekend, Harvard swept Columbia, but lost to Cornell. The Crimson and Tigers were tied for the league lead going into the weekend, but Harvard's loss gave Princeton the crown.