Williams entered the 2007 softball season having earned a reputation as the unquestioned leader of the NESCAC West, winning all six division titles awarded. During that time the Ephs had posted a 44-4 regular season mark against their West foes, including a perfect 24-0 record against Little Three rivals Wesleyan and Amherst.
But this year, it was only inevitable that the team would suffer a letdown given the key losses it incurred, particularly after the graduation of three All-NESCAC selections in pitcher Clara Hard, second baseman Alana Frost and first baseman Laura Noel. A three-time NESCAC Pitcher of the Year, Hard posted a sparkling 1.86 ERA in her senior campaign, while Frost paced the conference with a .443 batting average. Noel and classmate Christine Williams, meanwhile, were among the top five run producers for the Ephs last season.
Even with the loss of such a heralded class, however, Williams does not consider 2007 to be a rebuilding year.
"We lost a lot of talent," coach Kris Herman said. "But I like to look at each season as its own entity ... The losses are their own thing. It's not something we looked at for our team this year."
Compounding the absence of Hard, in particular, has been an arm injury to junior pitcher Margaret Ryan, who posted a lower ERA and opponent batting average than Hard in seven fewer starts in 2006. Though she has altered her delivery, hoping to pitch through the injury, Ryan has undoubtedly been limited this year, with a 2-5 record and an 8.96 ERA.
"With Margaret as an individual, it's a wait and see with how much stronger she can get," Herman said. "One of the issues is not just the change in delivery but the fact that she wasn't able to pitch the volume of pitching and preparation for the season, so she simply hasn't pitched a lot. When she gets her arm just generally conditioned, we think she'll be an impact pitcher for us."
Perhaps the surest sign that 2007 will be an uncharacteristically challenging season for the Ephs has been in the win-loss columns. Williams dropped the last seven games of a late-March spring trip to the Sun West Tournament in Orange, Calif., including a 14-0 mercy-rule setback to Tufts on March 22. The Ephs then lost 8-7 to NESCAC West rival Wesleyan in their home opener on March 30, the first time Williams had lost to the Cardinals since the inception of divisional play in 2001.
But the West foes seeking to dethrone Williams this year will have to overcome key losses of their own. Both Amherst and Middlebury, the two squads with the best chance of unseating the Ephs in the division, graduated their only All-NESCAC picks from last season. The Lord Jeffs lost first-team pitcher Miya Warner, the conference's leader in strikeouts in 2006, while the Panthers graduated second-team catcher Lauren Battaglia, whose .482 on-base percentage was top in the NESCAC last year.
Williams, however, refuses to underestimate its divisional competition.
"For the past three to five years, the best of the rest has been getting stronger in the NESCAC overall on both sides," Herman said. "It's never a given in our locker room that we're going to win the West, that's for sure. I don't think we've ever looked at it as our right or as an automatic."
But before the Ephs can continue with their NESCAC West schedule on April 13 at Middlebury, they will host the Jumbos for a double-header on Saturday, resuming a rivalry with countless storylines. First, there is their history, which has seen them pitted against each other in the last two NESCAC Championship games and four of six all-time.
Then, there is Herman's role. A 1986 graduate of Tufts, Herman went on to coach the Jumbos to three straight NESCAC titles between 2001 and 2003 before leaving her alma mater to take over the head job at Williams. With Herman's departure, Tufts, which was 8-3 in regular and postseason games against the Ephs during her tenure, lost the upper hand in its rivalry with Williams. The Jumbos are 0-4 against the Ephs in the NESCAC Tournament since 2004, as Williams has captured the last three conference championships.
Herman's successor at Tufts was none other than one of her former players, Cheryl Milligan, a shortstop for the Jumbos from 1992-1995. Milligan, however, prefers not to get caught up in the hype surrounding the rivalry.
"It's just a game, just another game on a Saturday," she said.
"It's clearly a less important game than the rest of our conference games and doesn't do much for us in terms of the standings," Milligan said. "It's much less important than all our Saturday games, to be honest. Is it nice to beat them? Yeah, it's nice to beat everyone. Is it nice to beat the people who beat you in the championships the last few years? Sure, of course it's nice. But we got a lot of work to do this week before we worry about Williams."
Herman echoed her former shortstop's sentiments.
"I don't think there's anything extra," she said. "It's always exciting because it's two good teams. Beyond that I think it's a good rivalry; it's exciting. I think some of the emotional edge from my role in it has worn off, which is a good thing. I think it's just fun because it's two good teams. We like to play well against each other."
