In the opening weekend of the conference portion of its schedule, not much more could have gone right for the pre-season America East favorite Boston University softball team.
In a rematch of the 2010 AE championship game, the Terriers (15-8, 3-0 AE) swept a three-game series against Stony Brook University (8-12, 0-3 AE), winning 10-1 and 13-2 on Saturday and 9-0 on Sunday, two-thirds of which they accomplished without senior center fielder April Setterlund.
BU coach Shawn Rychcik put in a pinch runner for Setterlund in game two of Saturday’s doubleheader after drawing a first-inning walk. The team leader and 2010 All-American did not return for Sunday’s game, but Rychcik indicated that the injury was not serious.
Rychcik did not divulge the exact nature or location of the injury, but added that he expects her to be ready to play against University of Connecticut on Wednesday.
“She’s got a little bit of an injury, but I think she’s going to be fine,” Rychcik said. “It’s been something that’s been bothering her for a little while. She should be day-to-day, so she should be fine. I think she’ll be OK.”
BU wasted little time in game one before jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the third inning thanks to an error by Stony Brook right fielder Suzanne Karath. The Seawolves narrowed the deficit to 3-1 in the bottom half of the inning when Karath scored after reaching on an error.
The Terriers blew the game open with six runs in the fourth. That rally was highlighted by a bases-loaded walk from Setterlund, followed by a grand slam by redshirt freshman first baseman Chelsea Kehr and a solo shot by freshman catcher Amy Ekart. The Terriers tacked on another run on Ekart’s RBI single in the fifth inning.
On the mound, freshman Holli Floetker (5-2) pitched her fourth complete game of the season, going all five innings while giving up just one run on four hits and four strikeouts.
Game two yielded similar results for BU, both at the plate and at the mound, even with the loss of Setterlund. This time, sophomore Whitney Tuthill (5-4) pitched all five innings for the complete game while surrendering two runs – one earned – on three hits, a walk, and five strikeouts.
Floetker played a significant role again, this time with a 3-for-3, five RBI performance at the plate as the designated hitter. Kehr chipped in four more RBIs – all of them on another grand slam – and junior left fielder Erica Casacci went 2-for-3 with 2 RBIs. BU won both games on Saturday in five innings due to the NCAA mercy rule.
The fact that so many players chipped in offensively all weekend impressed Rychcik, who said it was a testament to what the team is capable of when rolling on all cylinders.
“We had a real good week of practice,” Rychcik said. “We went down here, hit a little bit, and got some big performances from a lot of people. It’s good to see that the whole team is contributing to our wins. We’re an extremely young team, so you’ll see some ups and downs, and you’ll see what we’re really capable of doing.”
This trend continued on Sunday when seven different players drove in at least one run in the team’s 9-0 win to finish off the series.
Floetker had two of those RBIs, thanks to her 1-for-2 day at the plate. She also drew two walks and scored a run.
Another theme the Terriers continued on Sunday was dominant pitching, this time from sophomore Erin Schuppert. Schuppert (5-1) turned in her second shutout of the season on three hits, two walks, and seven strikeouts to lower her ERA to a team-low 0.86.
“Those were the performances I was hoping we would get from them, and we ultimately got the results we wanted,” Rychcik said of the pitching on the whole this weekend. “They were all in control of the game, and they had some really good innings. That’s what you want [in] a conference weekend.”
Despite the team’s overwhelming success in the opening weekend of conference play, Rychcik is not sold that the rest of the AE schedule will be this easy.
“Are we that much better than Stony Brook? We were this weekend,” Rychcik said, “but I really don’t know how that compares to the rest of the conference…We worry about us. We’ve just got to play our game.”
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