Softball Preview

This weekend, the Bulls softball team hopes two negative trends will come to an end - the poor weather and their inefficiency against other Mid-American Conference teams.

The Buffalo weather has not been kind to the team so far this year, as they have had to cancel or reschedule eight of their 10 home games.

Weather permitting, the teams will play a doubleheader at 1 p.m. Saturday and they will wrap up the series at 1 p.m. on Sunday.

If Mother Nature cooperates and the games do in fact go on, the Bulls (9-13, 1-5 MAC) hope they can start winning against MAC opponents. So far, their only MAC victory came against Marshall on March 23.

On paper, the Bobcats (4-17-1, 1-10-1 MAC) are a team that is very similar to UB on offense. The area that sets the teams apart is the pitching.

The Bulls pitching staff is led by sophomore Stacey Evans (6-8), one of the MAC's leading pitchers and the team's workhorse all year.

Evans, who will start at least one of the games for the Bulls, has been outstanding in almost every way this season. Her stats include 14 complete games in 14 starts, four shutouts, 86 strikeouts, a 1.36 ERA, and just for good measure she closed two games, picking up two saves.

Ohio could also see Andrea Sage or Heather Robbins, depending on whether the Bulls decide to use Evans twice. So far this year, Sage and Robbins have picked up the slack when Evans has not been able to go. Sage sports a 1-1 record and 5.12 ERA in eight appearances, while Robbins has a 2-2 record with a 7.00 ERA in six appearances.

"We've noticed a trend that the good offensive teams we play score a lot more runs on other teams than they have on us," said UB head coach Marie Curran.

Whereas Buffalo's strength is its pitching, the Bobcats' pitching has not been quite as effective. Ohio's staff has struck out 75 batters, allowed 136 runs, their ERA is 5.06 and their opponents are hitting .318 against them. All four numbers are second worst in the MAC.

The Bobcats' rotation consists of four pitchers and Curran said she does not know who they will see this weekend.

"Their pitchers are young, and we've never seen any of them pitch," said Curran. "But if you look at their numbers you see they've given up a lot of runs and that means they're putting the ball over the plate and hopefully they'll keep doing that."

Kristie Howe, Jenny Tisevich, Candi Warden and Kerry Harley make up the Ohio rotation. Howe (0-2) leads the team with an ERA of 3.63 while Tisevich leads the team with three wins, but carries an ERA of 5.30. Warden (0-7) and Harley (1-7) have ERAs of 5.61 and 5.73 respectively.

The Bulls hope that they can break out of the current slump they have been in against the weak Ohio pitching.

UB has not played a game since March 30 and they hope that all the time they have had to practice will lead to improved hitting, said Curran. The Bulls are hitting just .242 as a team and have been able to score just 55 runs, a 2.5 run per game average.

"Our first two weekends (of MAC play) we didn't hit the ball," said Curran. "We know that. But, the beautiful part of having bad weather is that we've been able to hammer out the mechanical problems and we've been able to get the girls' confidence back up."

Junior Breanne Nasti is the Bulls' most solid hitter. Nasti is hitting .339 with 10 runs scored and five RBIs on the year. Marce Ross and Jessica Kensy have also been contributing nicely offensively. Ross is hitting .309 with 11 runs scored and two RBIs, while Kensy is batting .300 with seven RBIs.

Offensively, Ohio brings in the MAC's second leading hitter in Erin Chapman. Chapman is hitting .475 on the year, just three points below the league's leader, Ball State's Katie Shea. Chapman has scored 14 runs and has 12 RBIs.

"We have a challenge in facing Chapman," said Curran. "But Stacey, Andrea and Heather are really excited for it."

The rest of the Bobcats are not hitting quite as well as Chapman. Ohio is hitting .242 as a team, they have been outscored 76-132 on the year, and 12 regulars are hitting below .200.

Although most of their numbers are sub par, one of their strengths is the ability to hit the long ball. The Bobcats have hit 20 homeruns and are currently on a streak of 15 straight games with a homerun.