Softball to finish up four-game series to Cornell today

The Columbia softball team will make up the final two games of a four-game series against Cornell today. The doubleheader was originally scheduled for Sunday, but was postponed due to rain.

The Lions dropped the first two games against the Big Red, suffering a 10-0 shutout in the first game and a 4-1 loss in the second. Columbia’s lone run of the series came from sophomore catcher Kayla Lechler, who hit her fourth home run with two outs in the sixth inning of the second game.

For the Light Blue offense, the key will be finding a way to get hits off of junior pitcher Elizabeth Dalrymple. The right-hander has compiled a 15-3 record this season with a 2.01 ERA in 122 innings, including the 12 innings of one-run ball that she threw in two starts against Columbia last Saturday. It is likely she will pitch in both games, considering the high stakes involved in playing against Cornell.

With a three-game lead over Penn in the South Division, the Big Red can secure a second consecutive Ivy League title if it can win its next two games against Columbia. The Quakers lost their last game against Princeton 4-3, meaning that they would need to sweep Columbia in a four-game series this weekend for a shot at a title.

Cornell also leads Harvard for the best overall conference record, with the Crimson scheduled to play a doubleheader in New Haven against Yale today and a four-game series against Dartmouth this weekend.

Columbia’s pitching staff will try to contain the Big Red offense, which scored 14 earned runs off of 20 hits in the 12 innings of play last weekend. Junior right-hander Maggie Johnson was able to hold Cornell to only one run and three base hits over the final five innings of work in her last start.

The games will take place on Niemand-Robison Field in Ithaca, N.Y., with start times scheduled for 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.