In Home Finale, Tigers Split with Harvard

Sunday, April 21

Princeton, N.J.

12:30 PM

Princeton University

12-21, 8-6

Harvard

18-15, 11-3

Harvard

Princeton

Allie Reynolds threw all 21 innings of the Harvard series.

Photo by: Beverly Schaefer

April 21, 2019 | Softball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

With two weekends to play in the Ivy League season, the Princeton softball team stands two games out of first place in the Ivy League after taking one of three from the team in the top spot.

Princeton outscored Harvard on the three-game series at the Class of 1895 Field 17-16 but dropped a pair of one-run games that allowed the Crimson to take two of three. Harvard won Sunday's first game 8-7 before Princeton won the series finale 7-4.

In Sunday's first game, Harvard scored a pair of first-inning runs on three hits and a hit batter, stranding two. Princeton stayed two runs down until the bottom of the fourth, when a Keeley Walsh base hit and a Kaitlyn Waslawski double pulled the Tigers within 2-1. Each team then traded four runs in the fifth, with Harvard using three hits, a walk and an error, all with two out, to take a 6-1 lead. Princeton put together a two-out rally of its own in the bottom of the fifth, with three walks and two doubles helping to pull the Tigers back within a run at 6-5. Mackenzie Meyer had one of those doubles, bringing in three runs.

But, Harvard pulled ahead 8-5 in the sixth, starting the inning with a base hit and a Meagan Lantz two-run homer, and in the last of the seventh, though two walks, a ground ball and a base hit helped Princeton claw back to within 8-7, the would-be tying run ended the game on first base as Harvard held on.

In the second game, Allie Reynolds, who threw all 21 innings in the series, set down the first nine Crimson batters she faced, and Princeton used that time to take a 5-0 lead. A leadoff Meyer base hit in the second came around to score a base at a time, and in the third, four hits and two errors added up to four runs with Alex Colón getting a two-run single.

Harvard got back in it with a three-run fifth, with homers from Teagan Shaw and Lantz bringing home all three runs to pull the Crimson within 5-3. Reynolds limited Harvard to a run on three hits over the last two innings, with the run coming on Shaw's second homer of the game, to hold the lead while Princeton tacked one on in the sixth on three hits with Hannah Lutz driving in the run.

The Ivy League standings have Harvard (11-4) leading both Columbia (10-4) and Penn (12-6) by a half-game, Princeton (9-6) by two and Yale (9-8) by three. The Tigers will play their final non-league game of the regular season Tuesday at Monmouth with a 4 p.m. single game before returning to Ivy play at Cornell next Saturday and Sunday.