Dartmouth Drops Nailbiter to Harvard, Ending Ivy League Tournament Run

Friday, May 10

Princeton, N.J.

10:00 AM

Dartmouth College

18-17

Harvard

26-16

Dartmouth

Harvard

Jensin Hall finishes the season with the most strikeouts by any first-year pitcher in program history.

Photo by: Kyle Relf

Dartmouth Drops Nailbiter to Harvard, Ending Ivy League Tournament Run

5/10/2024 3:12:00 PM | Softball

Box Score

The Big Green held a 5-2 lead as late as the fourth inning, but eventually allowed the Crimson’s go-ahead run in the sixth

By: Kyle Relf

PRINCETON, N.J. — After defeating No. 2 seed Yale on Thursday, the fourth-seeded Dartmouth softball team's Ivy League Tournament run came to an end on Friday, the third day of the four-day affair, with a 6-5 loss to No. 3 Harvard.

The Crimson will face top-seeded host Princeton and will need to win two straight in order to be crowned tournament champions.

A four-run third inning gave the Big Green a 5-2 advantage that lasted until the bottom of the fourth inning when Ivy League Player of the Year Sophie Sun delivered a three-run base hit to tie the game. The Crimson took the lead in the sixth with Lael Ayala's RBI double and Dartmouth, down to its final three outs, was set down in order.

Mary Beth Cahalan and Alaana Panu were both 2-for-4 at the top of the Big Green's lineup, and Ashley Frantz was 2-for-3 in the nine spot. Those three accounted for all but one of Dartmouth's seven hits, with the other coming from Justice Malone in the form a third-inning RBI single. Harvard also had multi-hit performances from its first two hitters, Lauren Bobowski and Sun.

Dartmouth needed just two batters, and a couple Crimson mistakes, to plate the game's first run. Cahalan ripped the first pitch of the morning into left field for a base hit and advanced to second base on a fielding error and came around to score when Panu reached on Harvard's errant throw.

Harvard not only got that one back, but took a 2-1 lead in the home half of the first with Finley Payne's RBI double.

Three straight singles at the start of the third inning brought the Big Green even. Leila Hennessy knocked in the go-ahead run with an RBI groundout before Olivia Schramm scored on a wild pitch. Malone brought the score to 5-2 with a clutch two-out single.

BIG INNING@justicemalone5 caps off a four-run frame that has us back on top, 5-2!https://t.co/pKPTLX1K3M | @ESPNPlus pic.twitter.com/SBSvpVe6JG
— Dartmouth Softball (@DartmouthSball) May 10, 2024

Jensin Hall looked to be settling in after a one-two-three third that included two of her seven strikeouts, but the Crimson tied the game at 5-5 in fourth with Sun's game-changing hit. A lead-off single and Ayala's double were all Harvard needed to jump back on top. Eventually down to its final out, Dartmouth looked to have life when Schramm connected on a hard line drive, but Crimson shortstop Sun made a leaping grab to end the game.

Hall's 176 strikeouts on the season are the most by any first-year pitcher in program history, and trails only two stellar seasons by Kristen Rumley '15 on the program's single-season leaderboard.

The loss marked the end of Dartmouth's 2024 season, which featured a five-win improvement in Ivy League play compared to the 2023 campaign, along with Hall's Ivy League Pitcher of the Year honor and additional All-Ivy accolades for Cahalan, Panu and Kelly Beaupre.