SB Sweeps at Not-So Happy Valley

Submitted by MGoSoftball on

The SB Team completed a 3-game sweep against Penn State today by winning a double header 18-4 and 9-6.  Today, combined with teh emotional game yesterday, gives us a 6-0 record in conference play.

In the first game, Sara continued to dominate in the circle as well as at the plate.  She led all hitters by going 2 for 4 with 5 RBIs.  In the circle, she pitched all 5 innings; gave up 4 ER on 5 hits.  She had 3 Ks and 5 BB with 1 HBP.

Sierra Romero went long and deep, twice; finishing 2 for 3 with 3 RBIs and 4 runs scored.  Caitlin Blanchard went 3 for 4 with 1 RBI and 3 runs scored.  Ashley Lane went 2 for 5 with 1 RBI.  Sierra Lawrence went 2 for 3 with an RBI and 3 runs scored.  Colie went 3 for 3 with an RBI and 2 runs scored. 

Overall we had 17 hits for the first game mercy-rule win.  Romero continues to tare it up and should be the Big Ten Freshman of the Year.  Lawrence will also get some love as well.  Caitlin is now leading the team in BA (>50 AB).

In the second game, Lauren Sweet came up big.  She went 4 for 4 with 5 RBIs and 3 runs scored.  Colie went 3 for 5 with an RBI.  Ashley Lane went 3 for 4 with 2 runs scored.  Jaclyn Crummey went 2 for 4.

Haylie got the ball in the second game and pitched all 7 innings.  She gave up 6 runs (2 ER) on 8 hits and 2 M errors.  She had 6 Ks and no BB although she had 2 HBP.

I predicted Penn State to finish near the bottom of the conference.  However, it is great to see such good pitching and timely hitting.  The game 1 game-ball goes to Sara and the game 2 game ball goes to Lauren.

Great job again ladies.  Keep it up.

 

 

South Bend Wolverine

March 31st, 2013 at 2:40 AM ^

Good couple of wins today to keep things rolling.  Holy cow, did the bats ever come out for us in these ones!

I am a little curious, it seems like we've been having some defensive issues lately, letting Purdue jump out to some big leads last weekend and almost letting PSU back into a couple of games this week.  MGoSoftball, do you think this is a serious issue, or just the breaks, and if it is an issue, any idea what the source of it is?

MGoSoftball

March 31st, 2013 at 2:38 PM ^

point out errors.  However, if you count the errors and subsequent runs off errors, most are made by Freshman.  I am not concerned at all because the Freshmen are going to make errors.  Usually Freshmen do not get starting roles at such a high level.  

The Freshmen are certainly worthy of starting at this level as evidenced by their hot bats.  Romero will probably win Freshman of the Year in the B1G.  So I guess we have to take the good with the bad at this point.

Defensive errors are easier to fix than a cold bat, by a long shot.  So it is worth the wait for the Freshmen to improve their defensive skills as long as they continue to hit.

Scorekeeper

March 31st, 2013 at 8:34 AM ^

I think we have always traded defense for offense; it doesn't hurt too much if the pitchers are really sharp and can handle the 4 out innings.

Our pitchers were not all that sharp yesterday; PSU is a really bad team so you don't want to be giving up that many runs to them, even if some were unearned.

Likewise, while our bats came out this weekend, it was also against subpar hitting. It will be interesting to see the team against better pitching - e.g., Darragh at Wisconsin or Moulton from Minnesota. 

I still think this team is really good. They showed grit in coming back against Purdue when the defense was shoddy and the pitchers were not sharp. In years past, we struggled to come back from 2, not to mention 5.

Wagner is still in spring training having not pitched for the first 15 games or so of the season.