Softball: Tolfa's gem highlights 1-0 victory

Princeton (8-14 overall, 3-5 Ivy League) was swept by Dartmouth (13-12, 6-2) and then split its series with the Crimson (19-9, 5-3), putting itself three games behind South Division leader Cornell (27-7, 6-2). So far this season, the Tigers have struggled to replicate last year’s success.

“Last year, we got ourselves to peak, and the hardest part was to be consistent and stay there,” head coach Trina Salcido said. “We’ll play several teams great, and we’ll have moments and single innings that are true to who we are as a team, and then we just kind of let down a little bit. We’re struggling with consistency.”

The highlight of the weekend came during the pitchers’ duel between Tolfa and Harvard starter Rachel Brown. Brown, arguably the Ivy League’s best pitcher in her rookie season, has compiled an 11-3 record with a 1.22 ERA. Unlike Princeton’s starting corps, Brown is a strikeout artist, racking up 146 strikeouts in 97.2 innings pitched.

Brown dominated the Tiger lineup for most of the short game, striking out 10 batters and walking only two.

On Sunday, however, Tolfa proved herself every bit Brown’s equal. It wasn’t easy — as Tolfa’s five allowed walks demonstrated — but the result was a 1-0 win. Though Tolfa got into dangerous situations, she also managed to strand four runners in scoring position. The only Crimson hit was a bunt single by outfielder Emily Henderson. After the game, Salcido praised her pitcher’s resilience.

“She dug deep,” Salcido said. “She wasn’t perfect [and] didn’t have every single pitch, but she used every pitch well and kept the hitters off-balance.”

Junior infielder Jamie Lettire began the breakthrough in the fifth inning with a full-count single. Sophomore infielder Kristin Arguedas, the next batter, lofted a ball to center field. Harvard outfielder Stephanie Krysiak misplayed the fly ball, and her error allowed Arguedas to reach base and Lettire to advance to third.

Sophomore catcher Brittney Scott executed the sacrifice bunt to score Lettire. It was the only run Princeton managed to eke out against Brown, but the lead held up for the Tigers’ only win of the weekend.

Tolfa’s start was especially needed given the rough losses Princeton had suffered the previous day. On the road in Hanover, N.H., the Tigers were shelled by the Big Green’s explosive offense. In the first game, a 13-7 Princeton loss, Lettire gave up 10 earned runs in four innings. Tolfa relieved Lettire and allowed three runs herself, a bad sign for the team’s second game. Dartmouth ultimately scored 12 runs against Tolfa to take the bottom half of the doubleheader, 12-7.

The Tiger offense started strong in both games against the Big Green, scoring five runs in the first three innings of each contest to take an early lead. Unfortunately for Princeton, the team’s struggles to score in the middle innings of a game continued this weekend. Dartmouth outscored Princeton by a combined 20-4 margin after the third inning to earn the sweep.

“There still wasn’t that urgency where it’s going to go the entire length of the seven innings,” Salcido said.

Aside from Tolfa’s start, there were few bright spots for the Tigers. In its second contest against Harvard, Princeton’s inconsistent offense once again struggled to score. Crimson starting pitcher Dana Roberts, in her fourth start of the season, shut down the Tigers’ lineup for 4.1 innings before being relieved by Brown.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Princeton’s hitters had slightly more success against the more familiar Harvard ace. Leading off the sixth inning, junior outfielder Kelsey Quist drew a walk. Lettire followed with a double to the opposite field. A wild pitch allowed Quist to score and Lettire to advance to third, and — two batters and two outs later — senior infielder Erin Miller hit a single down the left field line to score Lettire as well.

For the Tigers, it was too little, too late. Though the Crimson never broke through for a huge inning against Princeton, its lineup was consistent. Harvard infielder Whitney Shaw, the team’s leading batter with a .339 average, kicked off the scoring with a two-run home run in the first inning. It was the last inning in which the Crimson scored more than one run, but Harvard’s hitters patiently piled up eight more hits and three more runs to earn a 5-2 win.

For the Tigers to snap out of their current slump, their bats must heat up. Several of Princeton’s leading hitters from last season are struggling. Of the team’s top-five returning hitters, only senior infielder Kathryn Welch — who is currently hitting .413 and leads all Princeton batters with 20 RBI — has improved her batting average. No other Tiger has maintained a .300 average through the team’s first 22 games. Salcido believes that bad luck, rather than bad mechanics, is the culprit.

“Nothing’s broken in their swings,” Salcido said. “Some line drives drop, and some don’t. We hope we can find that consistency and that rhythm that allows our hitters to get comfortable.”

With a four-game series against Columbia (12-20, 2-6) next weekend, Princeton has a chance to rocket up the South Division standings, in which the Tigers are currently third. To do so, however, the Tigers will need their offense to be more consistent and for their pitching staff to be more than spectacularly wild — in short, it must simply be spectacular.