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Softball earns three wins on weekend; tourney snowed out
Games originally rescheduled for today cancelled due to excessive snowfall, team starts looking toward NCC tournament
 Abby Bourman
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 Nicole Webb
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Entering the weekend, the SCSU softball team had run up an impressive record of 27-7. The beginning of their conference schedule, however, was far from impressive.
A 3-4 start to the North Central Conference schedule put the Huskies in a hole, out of which they quickly needed to climb. Two Friday games at historic Selke Field against conference opponent North Dakota were supposed to be a tune-up for the second leg of the North/South Tournament, which took place at Bob Cross Field in Sauk Rapids. The featured matchup of the second day of the tournament pitted the Huskies against the University of Nebraska-Omaha, ranked number one in last week's North Central Region softball poll.
That matchup never happened, as day two of the tourney was cancelled due to the unusual April snowfall. The games were originally set to be played this morning, but tournament officials called off any rescheduling as the amount of snow was deemed too great to be removed in time.
The Huskies made the most of their truncated weekend, taking both games from UND and taking the first game of what turned out to be the only day of the tournament. The wins pushed their record to 30-8 overall, 6-5 in the NCC.
Friday's game one featured staff ace Nicole Webb in one of her more dominating performances of the season. She went the distance in the 3-0 win, hurling all seven innings, allowing only four hits, one walk and recording 10 strikeouts.
The SCSU lineup gave Webb all the support she needed in the bottom of the first inning, when first baseman Brooke Gentzler singled and stole second with two outs. Third baseman Megan Fuches appeared to be the final out of the inning, but an error by a UND fielder allowed Gentzler to score what proved to be the game's winning run.
The Huskies added insurance in the fourth inning when reigning two-time NCC player of the week Abby Bourman tripled home Fuches, who had walked.
Webb took it home from there, retiring 11 of the last 12 batters she faced to improve her record to 14-3. While she got lots of practice pitching with large leads earlier in the season, recently she has faced some stiffer competition.
"It's nice to pitch with a big lead, but we're all excited, pumped up anyway," she said. "There is less pressure (to pitch well with a large lead), but if we're ahead one to nothing or eight to nothing, I'm ready to pitch."
The second game against UND showed the world a very different Husky softball squad. Scoring only two runs, one on the final batter of the game, SCSU overcame five defensive errors for a 2-1 victory. Bourman, who committed one of the errors, said that the normally strong defense simply suffered a one-time mental lapse.
"Normally, our defense is our strongest suit," she said. "We'll try to bounce back as much as we can. Errors are going to happen. We just can't let them snowball."
SCSU again opened the scoring in the bottom of the first when Bourman singled home Gentzler from second base. The game remained at 1-0 until the top of the seventh, when UND designated hitter Rachel Bock scored on an error by Fuches.
In the bottom of the seventh, DH Melissa Wood walked and was replaced by Jenny St. Sauver. She advanced to second on a passed ball and to third on a sacrifice groundout by left fielder Amy Anderson.
Right fielder Abby Velta stepped to the plate and singled to right, scoring St. Sauver and ending the game.
The pair of wins got SCSU over the .500 mark in the conference. There's an old proverb that says familiarity breeds contempt; in the NCC's case, familiarity breeds competition.
"I think it's the best conference in the nation," Webb said. "Nebraska-Omaha won the national championship last year and North Dakota State won it the year before that. I think we're right there with them. At tournaments, even NCC teams that you wouldn't expect to win games do. There are no easy (NCC) games."
SCSU started off Saturday's games with a bang, as Gentzler's two-run double helped stake the Huskies to a 3-0 lead against Augustana. Center fielder Cally Stewart added a solo home run in the second and SCSU won a 6-1 decision behind Webb's six strong innings.
In the second game, against Morningside, SCSU learned that as it thrives on Webb's pitching, it can also die by it. Staked to a 4-3 lead, Webb entered the game in the fourth. In the sixth, Augustana shortstop J.J. Benson reached on an error by Fuches to open the inning. After retiring the next two batters, Webb surrendered a single, followed by a three-run home run to DH Julia Hall. Webb was tagged with her fourth loss as the Huskies fell 6-4.
As the snow fell on Sunday, some of the Huskies were left to wonder how their anticipated matchup with UNO would have gone. Even though SCSU was handled in both of this season's games against the defending national champs, there is plenty of confidence in the Husky camp that it's a game they can win.
"We're definitely looking forward to it," Webb said of the next game against UNO, which as it stands, will only happen in the NCC tournament, May 3-4. "We've learned how to hit their pitchers. The next game will come down to who gets the most hits. We scored three runs against them the last time we played, so we're confident. It will all depend on how we play. If we have no errors and pitch in the strike zone, we can win."
Up next for the Huskies is a home doubleheader against MSU, Mankato, on Tuesday, followed by a Wednesday doubleheader at South Dakota State. The Huskies have 13 games remaining until the postseason begins in Grand Forks, N.D.
Matthew Janda can be reached at: [email protected]
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