By Thomas Walter

Writer

The softball team opened Patriot League play this past weekend by losing four straight at home to Colgate, but rebounded with a split in a doubleheader against La Salle on Wednesday.

The Orange and Blue hit the ball well but left runners stranded in scoring position all weekend long. In the four games against the Raiders, the Bison recorded just four total runs off 15 hits.

“The most important thing for us to turn around is to get our bats moving so we can produce more offensively,” Cassie Greenhawk ’13 said.

On Saturday, the Orange and Blue kept it close in both of the day’s games, falling 4-3 and 2-0. Mary Horton ’13 went one-for-one with an RBI and three walks in game one, while Tori Robinson ’15 recorded the team’s only hit in game two.

Sunday’s games were much more lopsided as the Raiders were able to outscore the Bison 11-1 and 5-0.

“Even though the results weren’t that great, the team definitely took some positives out of this past weekend, the first being that even though there were a lot of runs scored against the team there was solid pitching effort all weekend long,” Courtney Conover ’14 said.

Going forward, the team knows that it must continue this trend of solid pitching if it wishes to succeed late in the season.

“I’d have to say that our pitching staff did a phenomenal job pitching during the Saturday double-header,” Greenhawk said. “They really held their own against Colgate as far as minimizing their opportunities to get runners in scoring position.”

After a disappointing weekend against Colgate, the team took to the field Wednesday against La Salle to get another warm up in before facing off against Lehigh. After dropping the first game 1-0, the Bison responded strongly with a 5-2 victory. Laura Sandford ’13 drove in the winning run in the second game in order for the team to get another win under its belt and get some confidence going into this weekend.

“The La Salle games definitely give us extra confidence going into Lehigh,” Conover said. “I think we let the first game get away from us, but we answered back in the second game and came back to win the game.”

The team travels to Lehigh this weekend to play its second Patriot League series of the season. The series is set to start on 1 p.m. this Saturday.

“The biggest thing we need to get done against Lehigh is hit when we have runners on, especially when they are in scoring position,” Conover said. “We have definitely been leaving too many runners on base and that’s definitely something we want to improve on this weekend.”