Softball team tries to keep bats hot

Its record ratio has stayed the same moving from 2-2 to 7-7, but the IU softball team has morphed into a different team since the beginning of the season.

Prior to the Hoosiers’ first home stand during spring break, the girls will continue their next westward journey to Fullerton, Calif., this weekend to compete in the DeMarini Invitational.

Hoosier fans have yet to see the women compete locally. However, there have been changes in game statistics from early this season until recently.

In the first weekend of the season at the Hotel Encanto Tournament in Las Cruces, N.M., Indiana pitching allowed 23 runs and 42 hits in four games. However, last weekend in the Phyllis Rafter Memorial in Woodstock, Ga., Indiana allowed just 10 runs and 35 hits in five total games.

Most of this can be attributed to an increase in successful fielding percentages, but pitching is playing an important role, as well.

Indiana pitching this season has consisted of just two young players. Freshman Lora Olson hit the path of her collegiate career running, pitching a total of 47 innings in first three tournaments as a collegiate pitcher.

Sophomore Meaghan Murphy also spends time in the circle.

Although Murphy is a sophomore, she gained little experience pitching as a freshman last season. During her first collegiate start, she pitched in five innings. Those five innings were her only experience in the circle last season. Murphy was better known for her fielding, making seven starts in right field and six starts at first base.

This season she has added more than 41 innings thus far.

Both girls’ ERAs have gotten better as the season continues, and IU Coach Michelle Gardner said she sees the improvement as a good thing for the team.

“Our pitchers are getting better, and we really need to have some better defense,” Gadner said. “Now that we’re getting what we need, we need to make sure that we’re doing good things in the field, also.”

Hitting, although a strength this season, has improved throughout the season, as well. Scoring early and getting out ahead has been a virtue for the Hoosiers recently. During the opening weekend, the Hoosiers averaged .75 runs per inning within the first three innings of each of their games.

That number has increased to .866 runs per inning within the first three innings of last weekend’s tournament in Georgia.

Coach Gardner said she attributes this increase in hitting strength to her two consistent senior hitters, Cassie Gogreve and Samantha Berenter.

Berenter, along with Olson and Murphy, was named to the All-Tournament team at the conclusion of the Phyllis Rafter Memorial tournament last weekend after posting a .500 batting average last week.

“I think Samantha is doing a great job,” Gardner said. “I’ve been waiting for her to step up, and she definitely has. I hope that continues.”

The team continues to grow from where it was at the beginning of February. However, Gardner said her team can still make adjustments for the next game.  

“I’m still moving things around a little bit,” Gardner said. “I think overall we’ve had some good things, but there are a couple places where we’ve had some repetitive errors, and we need to make some changes. So that is what I’m going to do.”