It was a weekend of ups and downs for the Big Green softball team, which dropped both games in Sunday's doubleheader against the University of Pennsylvania before coming back to sweep Columbia in another Ivy League doubleheader on Monday afternoon.
Despite the weekend's losses, Monday's Ivy League victories -- the team's first conference wins this year -- come at a crucial point in the season.
"We're only ever one swing away from getting out of a slump, only one hit away from a winning streak. These games will really help our confidence," head coach Christine Vogt said.
On Sunday, the Big Green (6-16, 2-4 Ivy) was unable to contend with the Quakers' (18-10, 5-3 Ivy) effective hitting and strong defense.
In Sunday's first game, Penn pitcher Jessie Lupardus struck out nine Big Green batters and allowed only three hits while keeping Dartmouth scoreless.
The Quakers scored one run in both the fourth and sixth innings before tacking on two in the seventh to seal the victory.
In Sunday's second game, Stephanie Trudeau '09 began the game for Dartmouth, walking in two runs in the top of the first inning.
After the Quakers' Christina Khosravi homered in the top of the third, the Big Green tied it up with RBIs from Christy Autin '10, Alyssa Parker '10 and Nikki Yee '10.
Penn then tacked on three more runs in the fifth and one in the seventh to complete the sweep.The following day, however, the Big Green combined for 15 hits in two games against Columbia (12-20, 3-5 Ivy), giving Dartmouth a 5-4 victory in the opener and a 2-0 shutout in the nightcap.
"Our bats finally started to connect," Vogt said.
The success was a relief as the team had struggled to put runs on the board throughout its contests against Penn, losing the second game 7-3 after being shut out 4-0 in the first contest of the day.
"We weren't getting the hits when we needed them," co-captain Angela Megaw '08 said. "But Monday, we went into the games with a positive attitude and with nothing to lose. We looked at it as an opportunity to win two games and that's what we did."
In the first of Monday's two contests, a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the seventh inning by Lions pitcher Aimee Kemp drove Sarah Bankoff '08 home to give the Big Green its first Ivy League win of the season.
Game two went scoreless until the bottom of the fifth inning when -- with two outs and a runner on first -- Audrey Kolodziej '11 singled to left field to bring home Autin on an error by the Lions' leftfielder.
The next batter, first baseman Parker, doubled to left field to bring in the last run of the game.
Autin, who leads the team with 19 hits, six RBIs and a .247 batting average, had four hits and one RBI on the weekend.
Parker also had a productive weekend at the plate, driving in four runs and scoring two. She leads the team in runs scored.
Trudeau had a solid outing on the mound for the Big Green, pitching 13 innings in two days. She gave up five earned runs on three hits against Penn on Sunday, before bouncing back to shut out the Lions in Monday's final contest in which she struck out seven and allowed five hits in seven innings.
Trudeau also batted two for three with two extra-base hits in Sunday's match against the Quakers.
Megaw gave up four runs on seven hits, walked four and struck out five against the Quakers on Sunday. She rebounded, however, by pitching seven innings and allowing four runs off of six hits to lead the Big Green to victory less than a day later.
Trudeau leads the team with 43 strikeouts on the season, while Megaw is a close second with 42.
"I can't say enough about the way [Megaw] and [Trudeau] pitched," Vogt said following Monday's games. "Pitching on short rest isn't easy, and they kept hitting their spots and getting themselves out of jams. They kept the opponents off balance and pitched with a lot of composure."
The team is scheduled to play six Ivy League games in the next week, heading to Cornell for a Wednesday doubleheader before facing off in back-to-back doubleheaders against Brown this weekend.
"I think we're going to roll with the momentum that we have," Megaw said. "We are looking at it like we have six more opportunities this week to get Ivy League wins."
