After losing the Ivy League Championship Series in 2016 and 2017 against Princeton, maybe all Harvard softball needed was a change in scenery. The Crimson traveled to Hanover, N.H., where it bested Dartmouth in two games to claim the Ancient Eight title and advance to the NCAA Regionals.
This weekend, Harvard softball traveled to Athens, Ga., to participate in NCAA Regionals after winning the Ivy League Championship Series over Dartmouth. The Crimson’s playoff trip was its first since 2012.
The season is on the verge of closing, after which the 2018 Crimson baseball team, for all its accolades, will be no more. But, before it moves on, though, the newfound Bad Boys of Boston look to add one more feather to its cap: an Ivy title.
At the Penn-hosted Ivy League Outdoor Heptagonal Championships, the Crimson track and field teams left with nine first place medals. Across the two day meet, the women's team placed second while the men finished sixth.
This weekend, Dartmouth softball handily swept Brown to finish 16-5 in conference play. In doing so, the Big Green clinched home field advantage in the Ivy League Championship Series and will host Harvard in next weekend's best-of-three set.
Alternating every year, Harvard Stadium and the Yale Bowl play host to the annual mid-November showdown known as The Game. This year, though, a third famous stadium joins that group.
In its inaugural trip to the NCAA Tournament, the Crimson squared off with 19-time champion UCLA on the Bruins' home turf. Under the lights of the Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles, Calif., Harvard went up one game before dropping three consecutively.
One win was all that the Harvard needed. After picking up that one win at Brown, the Crimson dropped the other two to close out its season, but will head to the Ivy Championship series for the third straight year.
Despite jumping out to leads in all three of its games, the Crimson could only muster one win on Sunday to avoid being swept by Cornell. The team must regroup for its final matchup of the year in order to clinch a spot in the Ivy Championship series.
