SB sweeps 3 games from Purdue
I appologize to the board for my tardy response with the SB games this weekend. I was feeling ill yesterday and went to The Palace today. We opened the Big Ten season at home against Purdue.
The first game Friday was a 9-0 Mercy-Rule 5-inning win. Sierra Romero had 2 home runs and Caitlyn Blanchard hit 1. Sara Driesenga pitched all 5 innings. She gave up 4 hits and had 7 Ks and 0 BB.
Today, the teams played a double header. We won the first game 13-6 in a 6-inning mercy-rule win. Sierra Romero went long again going 3 for 3 with 2 RBIs and 2 runs scored. Sierra Lawrence went 2 for 3 with 3 RBI and 2 runs scored. Lyndsay, Ashley, and Caitlin had 2 hits apiece.
Sara picked up the win in relief by pitching the last 2 innings. She had 1 K and 0 BB. Haylie pitched 4 innings and gave up 5 runs off 8 hits. She struck out 2 and walked 1.
In the final game played today, we won 8-7 in a close one. Caitlin Blanchard kept up her torrid pace and push for All-American status by going 2 for 5 with 1 RBI and 1 runs scored. Ashley went long and finished 2 for 4 with 4 RBIs.
Haylie picked up the win in relief by pitching the final 5 innings. She had 4 Ks and 0 BB. Sara started and gave up 7 runs off 5 hits. She had 3 Ks and 1 BB.
We win all the sports.
M destroyed both VCU and Miami today and also stole an unlikely win against Purdue this afternoon.
Looking at MGoBlue, mens and womens tennis won today (the women won handily), baseball split and lacrosse lost while both mens and womens track were at non-scoring events, mens gymnastics is still competing while the women took 2/8 at the Big Ten Championships. The water polo team also won at least their first game (match?) today.
Both of the wins today were come from behind.
In the first game, UM got behind by 5. Wagner was hit hard, but there was an error and some passed balls in the mix as well. She settled down and had 2 scoreless innings. We chipped away at the lead and then Purdue made some costly errors and UM wins by a mercy.
The second game was pretty similar; our pitcher was hit hard and we made some errors. Again, we chipped away and tied it late in the game. By this time Romero wasn't getting anything but intentional walks - including in the last inning, which put a runner on 3rd with less than two outs. Blanchard hit a single up the middle to end the game.
It's nice to see contributions from a variety of players; to see the team come back and win after some solid hitting by Purdue and some errors by UM.
Both of the Sierras are good additions to the team.
This year is so much different than the previous 3 or 4. Everyone in the line up is hitting. Special note to Amy Knapp and Caitlin Blanchard. These two young ladies flipped a switch. They both should make 1st Team All-Big Ten along with Sara and Haylie. Sierra Romero should be Freshman of the Year and Sara should be Player of the Year.
March 23rd, 2013 at 10:23 PM ^
I agree that Knapp's hitting has really improved, but both she and Blanchard will have a tough time challenging for First Team. They don't hit with enough power for 3rd and 1st. For most teams those are power positions with players that produce lots of RBIs and home-runs.
But, their play is important to the team.
One other thing Hutch has done differently this year is switch the line-up around, mostly batting order rather than players. #1 - #3 has been set, but we've had lots of shuffling around with #4 - #9. It even happened today with Blanchard and Dreisenga swapping slots.
Sweet has been in #8 and is finally climbing out of the season-long slump she's been in. She had a 2-run homer in Game 2 today and is cutting down on her Ks.
March 24th, 2013 at 12:07 AM ^
Gotta give a huge shout-out to Sierra Romero. In her 12 plate appearances in this series, she went 7-7 with 5 walks (two intentional). To reiterate: she reached base safely every single time she came to the plate in this 3-game series, batted 1.000, went yard 3 times, scored 6 runs, and had 7 RBIs. That is as good of a series as a player can deliver, and we got it out of a freshman!