Softball 4/8 to 4/13

[Tax Guy]

Big weekend conference match up.
Travel to Orlando to face the University of Central Florida (24-14 overall and 1-0 in conference.)
Games are Friday, Saturday, Sunday, at 4:30, 1:00 and 11:00.

UCF was #1 preseason conference pick and is much better than the 24-14 record would indicate. They play a very tough nonconference schedule. Yes they had a 8 game losing streak early…against James Madison, Auburn, Texas A&M, UCLA, Arizona, LSU, Washington, and Notre Dame all in the current top 25. Wednesday they played #3 Florida and lost 3-1.
The only common opponent was Florida Atlantic. UCF lost 2-0, Tulsa lost 1-0.
Last week they only got 1 game completed in Connecticut so they are 1-0 in conference.

Not trying to oversell it but at this point it looks like this and the USF weekend later this month should decide the regular season conference assuming all 3 teams take care of business in the other games.

Midweek games:
Arkansas (12-23) on Tuesday at 5 in Tulsa. This will be a return trip Tulsa won in Fayetteville 4-3.
Trip to Springfield to Missouri State (13-18) on Wednesday at 5. They lost to OSU 4-0.

 

[Tax Guy]

Friday's Game:
http://www.theamerican.org/watch/?Live=237

 

[canerush]

UCF's pitcher has always been tough against us. She's always had command. But I think coach made a big mistake not pulling Watson when she barely escaped bases loaded in the 4th inning without them scoring.. She never was confident in this one and it showed as she labored. For such a low ERA she has a high loss record which is indicative of her tendency of getting rattled under pressure. Defense may have not helped in a couple games but with a 9 and 8 record most has to be on her. She has good stuff and ability but her body language lacks some swagger and a kill switch.. Between mask adjustment, bending for rosin bag and reading notes on your arm each pitch, that's a lot going on. She's young and has great stuff when she's in the zone, and we need her down the stretch. It's easy to say after a game what should have been done differently. But I really thought there would be a different pitcher in the 5th, in a tie game.

 

[softballdad1985]

I watched that game...canerush, you are on point...to me, the key moment was horners double and failure to sac her over to 3rd..you havent scored in 21 innings on this kid..she gave up 4 hits to Florida..not going to get but 1 or 2 chances

 

[Tax Guy]

Weekend Results 0-3
Overall 21-10 and 5-4 in conference.

Friday L 1-4
Tulsa 1 run on 4 hits and had 3 errors and 8 LOB
UCF 4 runs on 6 hits had 0 errors and 10 LOB

Saturday L 1-4
Tulsa 1 run on 4 hits had 2 errors and 6 LOB
UCF 4 runs on 8 hits had 1 error and 12 LOB

Sunday L 1-3
Tulsa 1 run on 5 hits had 0 errors and 7 LOB
UCF 3 runs on 8 hits had 0 errors and 5 LOB

Maggie Withee had a good weekend going 6-11 for the series.
Tulsa had only 1 extra base hit on the weekend.
Days 1 Emily Watson and Day 2 Caitlin Sill went into the 6th inning and UCF scored 3 runs in the 6th on both days.
It should be noted on Day 2 UCF had 0 ER so it’s not all on the pitchers.
On day 3 Sill pitched the first 4 and Watson finished up. No big inning but UCF still was able to scatter 3 runs.

 

[canerush]

I thought the way the umpires were calling the games with the wide strike zone, it kept the girls swinging at pitches they normally might not swing at. UCF's pitchers were consistently getting the 1st pitch a called strike. I'd had them up there swinging for the fence on the 1st pitch instead of waiting for a called strike knowing the umps were giving 6 inches off the plate. Kudo's to Maggie!

3 days 3 games 3 same results.

Not sure why we haven't seen Lexi Blevins before now. She should have been put in some of our blow out games last couple of weeks for experience. She seemed to do ok thrown to the wolves.

 

[Tax Guy]

New video scoreboard is ready for Arkansas game!

 

[Tax Guy]

Tuesday L 4-1
Arkansas 4 runs on 6 hits had 0 errors and 5 LOB
Tulsa 1 run on 3 hits had 2 errors and 6 LOB
Tulsa failed to take their bats to Florida and apparently couldn’t find them when they got back.
Maggie Withee was 1-2, stole a base, and scored a run.
Morgan Neal, and Kaitlin Allen both doubled and that was the offense.
Caitlin Sill pitched the complete game 4 runs 1 ER, 6 hits (1 HR), 1 BB with 6 K.
Outside a shaky 3rd inning resulting in 3 unearned runs, Catlin was solid pitching, but 1 of the 2 fielding errors was on her.

 

[Tax Guy]

Wednesday W 2-1
Tulsa had 2 runs on 4 hits had 1 error and 3 LOB
Missouri State 1 run on 4 hits had 0 errors and 4 LOB
Notable:
Morgan Neal was 1 for 2 with a HR and a BB
Kaitlin Allen was 2 for 3 with a double and an RBI
Otherwise the bats are still pretty quiet
Emily Watson was on today going complete game with 1 ER on 4 hits 0 BB and 6 K.

Tulsa ends the week 28-11 overall and 5-4 in conference
Off this weekend.

 

[TU_BLA]

This is about the same point the team hit a lull last year too after a decent start. Need to start tearing things up.

 

[Gmoney4WW]

They need a win against OU and at least 2 wins against South Florida to get themselves back in the conversation.

 

[Tax Guy]

Looking at the schedules for the rest of the season, I see it looking something like this.
UCF will go into the conference tournament as the number 1 seed.
Tulsa will be number 2.
Houston and USF will end up with the same conference record as the 3rd and 4th seeds.
How?
Houston is better than the record shows so far. They just split a double header with Baylor, and they will scare UCF this weekend and end the season on a 9 game conference winning streak against the bottom half.
USF will get by Memphis this weekend, then be fully exposed finishing the season playing Florida, Tulsa, and UCF.

In the conference tournament Tulsa will need to not stumble on Friday (Houston?) and figure out UCF pitching to score more than 1 run on Saturday to ensure a spot in a regional tournament.

Beating Oklahoma, or at least being extremely competitive would go a long way to an at large bid outside of winning the conference tournament.