Coming off a confidence-building 11-0 rout of Illinois-Chicago, the UW softball team (4-8 Big Ten, 20-19 overall) has a big weekend ahead of them against conference rivals Penn State and Ohio State. If the Badgers are going to make a charge towards the Big Ten Tournament, the time is now to start winning some big games.
Penn State traditionally has not been a great hitting team, but their pitching's really good, so offensively if we can put some things together we'll be OK,\ UW head coach Chandelle Schulte said. ""If we can keep the ball in the park against Ohio State, we should be successful.""
As Schulte alluded to, the Nittany Lions (6-8, 33-12) have dynamite pitching. Staff ace Missy Beseres pitches as well as anyone in the Big Ten with an 18-5 record, a 0.86 earned run average and 10 shutouts. Getting past Beseres will not be easy, but even if the Badgers knock her out of the game, they have to deal with Ashley Esparza and Jenn Reynolds, who both have ERAs under 1.5. Williams and Esparza are also PSU's best hitters, batting .321 and .302 respectively.
Power is the forte of the Buckeye (10-4, 34-17) squad. Five of their players have at least four home runs and six players have at least 22 runs batted in. Megan Schwab leads the team with a .342 average while Courtney Pruner has seven homers and 31 RBIs. And although their pitching's not as impressive as Penn State's rotation, the Buckeyes hold their own. No. 1 starter Kim Reeder is 14-7 with a 1.78 ERA and their other two pitchers are not bad either, with a combined 20-10 record and ERAs under 3.
The Penn State games occur Friday at 6 p.m. and Saturday at noon, while the Ohio State doubleheader begins at noon Sunday. All games take place at Goodman Diamond. Junior Eden Brock will likely start on Friday and Saturday while freshman Leah Vanevenhoven should start a Sunday game.\
