HANOVER — Mental preparation has always been a key component of the Dartmouth College softball team’s preseason training program.
But because it’s been nearly two full years since the Big Green have played a non-exhibition game, and only the seniors have been around for an uninterrupted season, they ramped it up this year.
“We’ve done a little bit more work there, including doing leadership training as a group with an outside organization, and then doing intra-team training that builds off of that,” Dartmouth head coach Jen Williams said. “We are helping people understand their own minds and how best to be self-aware and making sure that they feel they are always in control.”
The Big Green, picked to finish tied for fifth in the Ivy League preseason poll, played five exhibition games last spring, all of them away from Hanover. But they did not have the full team together for any of those games — three upperclassmen were not on campus for any of the 2020-21 academic year.
Dartmouth still has plenty of experience, relatively speaking, at the plate and in the circle. Senior Billie McFayden will be a fixture at the top of the lineup after hitting .433 in the shortened 2020 season. Williams also has high hopes for sophomore Mary Beth Cahalan, who played well in the 2021 exhibitions. Freshman infielder Leila Hennessy and first-year outfielder Alaana Panu could make immediate impacts as well.
“My level of excitement is through the roof,” McFayden said. “It’s important to go in confident, but not too excited. We’re going to jump right onto the field whenever we see it.”
Two seniors and two freshmen make up the Big Green’s pitching staff. Left-hander Brooke Plonka was mostly a reliever in 2019 and struggled in that role but was on her way to a much-improved 2020 before the season was halted. She and the other senior, Maddie Augusto, combined on an eight-inning no-hitter on Feb. 23, 2020, as Dartmouth defeated North Carolina A&T.
Freshman Megan Hagge, the tallest player on the roster at 6-foot-1, is also the hardest thrower, according to Williams, and fellow freshman Rachel McCarroll is a drop-ball specialist.
“(The freshman pitchers) make me so excited,” Plonka said. “I’ve never been in the leader or mentor role, and I love it. What makes me excited is the fact that we’re so different. Every one of us brings something else to the table.”
As is the case for all teams from the Northeast and Midwest, the Big Green will spend the early part of the season in warmer climates, with tournaments in South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. That should suit Dartmouth well — 15 of its 19 players hail from the South or West, with nine from California alone.
The non-conference schedule presents plenty of challenges for the Big Green, who last qualified for the NCAA tournament in 2015. Six Power Five teams — Maryland and Illinois out of the Big Ten, Tennessee and Georgia from the SEC, and Virginia and Georgia Tech in the ACC — await Dartmouth before the Ivy League opener on March 26 against Yale.
For Williams, now in her fourth year and third season in Hanover after a successful tenure in the Division III ranks at MIT, handling that early slate goes back to the self-awareness her team has been working on since the fall.
“This is really about the mental side of the game and how well they handle that aspect of it,” Williams said. “Physically, we have a very good idea of where they all are. The Ivy League is going to be largely unknown this year, so we want them ready to take on the toughest competition. With a schedule like ours these first few weeks, that’s going to be an easier mindset to get into.”
Benjamin Rosenberg can be reached at brosenberg@vnews.com or 603-727-3302.