Senior outfielder Chiya Louie belts a two-run home run in the second game of a doubleheader v. Harvard yesterday at BU Softball Field. Shannon ReedWith Major League Baseball opening its season in just two days, the Boston University softball team did its best MLB impression by playing nine heart-pounding innings against Harvard University yesterday afternoon.
In the first game of a doubleheader, the Terriers and Crimson were locked in a pitcher’s duel. After seven innings, the score was deadlocked at zero and the Terriers hadn’t even mustered a hit. In the extra frames, both offenses exploded, in comparison to their performance through the first seven.
Harvard struck first, scoring a run in the top of the eighth, but BU quickly answered, scoring a run in the bottom half of the inning to extend the game. Harvard scored yet another run in the top of the ninth, and 2-1 ended up the final score as BU failed to muster a response.
In the end, it was a specific rule for extra-innings that made it all possible: the international tiebreaker.
“We only use it for non-conference games and for some tournaments,” said BU coach Shawn Rychcik.
The rule stipulates that at the beginning of each extra-inning frame, the batter scheduled to bat ninth that inning starts on second base. Thus, each inning begins with a runner on second and typically, the rule allows for more offensive output.
“It did its job today,” Rychcik said. “Without it, the two pitchers would have been out there all day and we wouldn’t have finished the first game.”
The extra runner can make a big difference not just in the outcome of the game, but in the strategy both teams employ both on offense and on defense.
“Offensively, I want the hitters to stay aggressive and look for a pitch they can hit,” Rychcik said. “It does
. . . give you more offensive options.”
One option that most hitters employed in the extra-innings affair yesterday was attempting to bunt the runner from second over to third. But the pitchers were tough, not allowing the batters to get any bunts down and retiring each lead-off batter.
“I try to focus on getting the first batter out, because that makes a big difference,” said freshman pitcher Megan Currier, the hard-luck loser of the game.
But even after getting the first batter out, the pitcher certainly doesn’t have an easy road, having to retire two more batters with a runner still in scoring position. Often, allowing just one run in the inning can be considered a victory for the pitcher.
“I just try and think about it as another inning and not let them get any runs across. If they do get runs, I just try to hold them to one,” Currier said.
The extra runner also poses a problem for the defense, which has to guard against bunts.
“Defensively, the runner starting out on a second really forces the fielders to be even more alert,” Rychcik said.
The Terriers’ 2-1 loss was their third game to enter extra frames this year. BU went 1-1 in the other games, beating Bowling Green State University, 5-4, in nine innings to win the Speedline Tournament and falling to Radford University, 5-4, in nine innings at the Georgia Tech Buzz Classic.
This was one of the last chances the Terriers had to play in this special form of extra-innings, as BU will play a majority of its upcoming games in conference play. But in the end, softball is softball, no matter if there is an extra runner on second or not.
“A runner on second and no outs adds a little pressure, but whether or not someone is on second, it is the same game and you still have to keep them from scoring,” Currier said.
