Ivy Champion Softball Team to Host Ivy Playoff Series Friday, Saturday

Friday, May 13

Princeton, N.J.

12:00 PM

Princeton University

Harvard (Ivy Playoff)

Photo by: Sideline Photos, LLC

Ivy Champion Softball Team to Host Ivy Playoff Series Friday, Saturday

May 09, 2022 | Softball

The Ivy League championship is already secured for the Princeton softball team, and when Harvard comes to Princeton Softball Stadium at Strubing Field on Friday and potentially Saturday, the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament will be at stake.

Ivy League Playoff Series vs. Harvard
Game 1, Friday, 12 p.m. | ESPN+ | Int'l Video | Live Stats
Game 2, Friday, 2:30 p.m. approx. | ESPN+ | Int'l Video | Live Stats
Game 3, Saturday, 12 p.m., if necessary | ESPN+ | Int'l Video | Live Stats

Admission for the Playoff Series is free. For Friday's games, attendees should park either at the parking meters on Prospect Street or at the Harrison Street lot, and on Saturday, attendees should park in the North Garage. Refer to the parking map here. The softball field is located on Fitzrandolph Road just south of Ivy Lane.

The Ivy League Championship Series began in 2007 when the league split into two divisions, and it continued as the Ivy League Playoff Series in 2018 when the divisions were removed and the league champion became the regular-season winner and the added series was just for the NCAA bid. Princeton has been in the Championship/Playoff Series three times before 2022, all against Harvard and all Princeton wins, in 2008 (home), 2016 (away) and 2017 (home). In 2016, Princeton became the first road team to win the series, a feat equaled by Harvard in 2018 at Dartmouth.

Princeton is the only team to appear in the Ivy League Championship/Playoff Series and win every appearance. Brown and Yale have not appeared, while Harvard is 5-4, Princeton is 3-0, Cornell is 2-1, Dartmouth is 2-3, Penn is 1-4 and Columbia is 0-1.

If Princeton wins the series, the Tigers would secure the program's 11th NCAA tournament bid and third in the last five chances, along with 2016 and 2017. The Ivy League championship that Princeton already won was its 20th, more than twice the total of anyone else in the league. Princeton's softball program is now one of four women's programs across all sports across the league to win at least 20 Ivy titles, along with Princeton field hockey (26), Harvard squash (25), and Princeton swimming and diving (23).

Princeton (.294) and Harvard (.255) are the top two teams in the league by batting average and two of the top three in ERA behind Brown (2.74), with Princeton at 2.99 and Harvard at 3.10. The Tigers lead the Ivy in pitching strikeouts by a wide margin, at 336 with Brown second at 193 and Harvard tied for fourth at 133. Individually, Allison H leads the league with 13 doubles while Sophia Marsalo and Serena Starks are tied for second in the league with 46 hits each. Alexis Laudenslager (1.96) and Ali Blanchard (2.52) are first and third in the league in ERA around Harvard's Anna Reed, who is second at 2.16. Laudenslager (.189) and Blanchard (.200) are first and second in opponents' batting average, and Blanchard (144) and Laudenslager (128) are first and second in strikeouts with Dartmouth's Brooke Plonka (117) as the only other Ivy pitcher with more than 77 Ks this season.

The series winner will learn its NCAA tournament destination on Sunday at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2. The four-team, double-elimination NCAA regionals will run primarily May 20-22.