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The Black Bears softball team has reached the approximate halfway point of their regular season, having played 33 of their scheduled 57 games. Their record stands at 17-16, and they look for that mark to improve as they finally spend a few weeks at home and continue America East conference play, which began just last weekend with their series against UMBC.
Head coach Stacey Sullivan is pleased with the way the team’s season has been going thus far. She thought the team played really hard last weekend in the three game series, two of which they won. “It was a tough series,” said Sullivan. “They knocked us out of the tourney last year, so we were very motivated to come out and win. It was a challenge, but we didn’t give up and both of our wins were come-from-behind victories.”
UMBC, known year in and year out as a very strong offensive team, were kept mostly in check in the team’s two wins last weekend. Freshman pitcher Christine McGivney had an outstanding performance in the first game, allowing only one run in 12 innings. “They had us scouted pretty well. They completely took away our running game, but we used bunts and had some timely hits that helped us manufacture some runs in the series.”
Many of the team’s key players this season are underclassmen and their early development and hard work for improvement has been instrumental in the team’s success. The team features a surprising 11 freshman players, most of who either start regularly or have made significant contributions in the first half of the season. One of these young standouts is McGivney, who leads the team in strikeouts with 31 and is second in starts (11) and innings pitched (65.2). Sullivan also mentions sophomore second basemen Ashley Waters and freshman outfielder Alexis Souhlaris as key players who have been developing well.
“Ashley is becoming a real leader out there on the field,” said Sullivan. “And Alexis is such an exciting and fun player to watch. You can see that her teammates just thrive off her energy.”
On a side note, Souhlaris was named the America East Rookie of the Week for the first time in her career. Sullivan said that the team has a lot of talent and that they are “still developing every day.” They are really working on their consistency because sometimes their offense will be spectacular but their defense will hurt them in games, or vice versa.
The Black Bears have another challenging series ahead of them this weekend against Stony Brook University. “Every weekend is a fight in our conference,” said Sullivan. Indeed, last season, every team lost at least one conference game, and it will probably be a similar story this season. Stony Brook leads the conference in pitching, so it should be a tough three games. “We’ve just got to continue to play our game and force others to play our game.”
One good thing about this weekend is that it is UMaine’s home opener. Incredibly, they have already played half of their season and haven’t had a single home game. Of the traveling, Sullivan simply had this to say: “We’re exhausted.” She also said that they are really looking forward to seeing the fans come out and support them.
UMaine plays Stony Brook in a double header on Saturday beginning at noon, and a third game to be played on Sunday is scheduled for 11 a.m. The games will be played on campus at Mike Kessok Field. Admission will be free for all UMaine students.
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