When not all was glittering, Harvard junior Rachel Goldberg worked hard to get back into the swing of things.

“I didn’t have a very successful freshman year batting,” Goldberg recalls.

Instead of waiting to confirm whether this performance was the result of jitters brought on by the transition to college, Goldberg took the advice of Harvard coach Jenny Allard and made a change after her freshman campaign.

She had always batted as a lefty but decided to move to the other side of the plate to exploit her power. In her first season from the right side of the plate, she posted a league-best .419 average against Ivy opponents.

Since the age of twelve, the 20-year old from Princeton Junction, New Jersey had been a slap hitter. Even though she was naturally right-handed, she batted as a left-hander. Doing so put her an extra step closer to first base after a swing and allowed her to use her speed, rather than her power, to get on base.

Speed, though, did not seem to be enough as time passed.

Maybe it was the second ACL surgery before her freshman season that slowed her down. Maybe it was the talent level of the college game in which players are more talented than high schoolers, but Goldberg could no longer rely on her speed alone to get on base.

This fact, coupled with informal displays of power from the right side of the plate during pre-season practices, helped set a change in motion.

“We were playing home run derby one time in practice, and I hit some out right-handed, so coach recommended that hitting from the right might be a good thing for me,” she says.

After receiving pointers from Allard, Goldberg decided to work throughout the off-season between freshman and sophomore years to make the switch to a right-handed power hitter.

“I had to make a decision,” she says, knowing the effort the change would require. “If you’re going to go for something like that, it has to be all out. I took the plunge, and it ended up working out for the best.”

Having been a slap hitter for twelve years, Goldberg had to start with the basics of being a power hitter, which required a change in mentality as well as technique.

“She was very unorthodox, but had tremendous power,” Allard says.

When told of Allard’s comments, Goldberg smiled, remembering an initially clumsy swing that has now developed into a fluid motion.

The transition was not easy, and required extra time in the batting cage to make the switch. But in the end, Goldberg feels she made the right choice, even if that fact wasn’t clear early on.