Sports

UM softball off to rocky start

Sunny weather unable to motivate women over spring break

By Laila Sholtz-Ames

Posted on March 24, 2008, at 12:00 a.m.

During spring break, the University of Maine softball squad played more than a dozen games in Hawaii and Florida, against universities like Texas Tech, Western Michigan and North Carolina State. Unfortunately for the Black Bears, the sunshine failed to help provide a much-needed spark, as the team dropped every game and has yet to win a match.

The Black Bears began spring break in Florida, playing against SUNY Albany and Western Michigan in the Stetson Invitational. The squad lost in a shutout to defending American East Champions in a score of 8-0.

Later in the tournament, the Black Bears faced a heartbreaking 2-1 loss in an 11-inning game against Western Michigan. Junior Jenna Balent pitched a near perfect game, striking out five batters without giving up an earned run, but proved this was not enough to lift the squad to a win.

After the Stetson Invitational, the Black Bears took part in the Under Armour Invitational in Clearwater, Florida. They faced North Carolina State, Jacksonville and the University of Southern Florida (USF) and saw themselves down early in a score of 4-0. They mounted a comeback to tie the game 4-4 in the seventh. In the next inning, USF hit a game-winning homer to hand UMaine its 13th loss of the season.

After the loss, the Black Bears flew to Hawaii where they dropped a pair of contests to 16th ranked University of Hawaii.

UMaine concluded the Hawaiian trip with a 6-3 loss to Texas Tech. The Red Raiders pulled ahead 6-0 in the early innings, when the Black Bears tried to get back into the game behind the play of first-years Kirsten Allen and Kali Burnham. UMaine’s comeback fell short, and the Black Bears lost their 16th game of the season.

The Black Bears returned to Maine for a few days of rest before taking on Providence College in Rhode Island this past weekend.

Despite the losses over spring break, UMaine junior infielder Ashley Waters hit two home runs and was named to the Hawaii Spring Fling All-Tournament Team, due to her .400 effort.

Walters led the team in batting this season with a .333 average, a team-high of five home runs and eight RBI.

The softball team is now 0-26 on the season and will play their home opener against Binghamton on April 5.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.