Softball, Sports

Terriers ready to dive into final weekend, playoffs

For the Boston University softball team, the rest of the season is much like a three-course meal: today’s game against Boston College being the appetizer before the main course of the weekend’s regular season-ending series at Binghamton University. The dessert – the America East tournament – will be played out May 12-14.

Oh, and the Terriers are hungry.

“Hey, we’re in the playoffs. That is always the first goal of the year no matter what, then get the league [regular season title], then the championship,” said BU coach Shawn Rychcik. “We’ve achieved a very small milestone in terms of what we want.”

To follow up on that “small milestone” – clinching a spot in the AE tournament – the Terriers (30-14, 12-3 AE) will attempt to sweep the season series against BC (14-30), which they beat 10-9 on March 31 in one of the most dramatic wins of the season. Down 8-1 in the fourth inning, BU scored nine times in its last three turns at bat to win what was then its fifth game in a row.

According to Rychcik, it was just another example of perseverance for the Terriers, who have made a habit of hitting well late in games this season.

“We gave up five unearned runs that game, so we didn’t play our best,” Rychcik said. “We know going into every game that we have a chance to come back late, and that game we just added to that fire for it. Hopefully we’ll play better the second time and just go from there.”

When Rychcik says, “just go from there” he really means it: he claims he does not have much of a plan in terms if which pitchers will get action against BC. Normally he likes to get at least three pitchers a couple of innings during a mid-week matchup, but because it’s so late in the season, keeping his hurlers sharp is not a concern.

“This team is a dangerous team, so if [one of our pitchers] is in a groove and throwing well she will be left in,” Rychcik said. “Whether it’s three innings, five innings, seven innings, that’s fine. Whatever it takes for us to get the win out there.”

From there, BU will travel to Binghamton (21-19, 9-5 AE) for the last conference series of the weekend. BU will look to solidify its place as the number one team in AE and continue its undefeated road conference schedule against third-place Binghamton. Despite the clear significance this series has for conference standings, and in turn tournament seeding, Rychcik is doing the best he can to deflect any extra attention from it.

“That is something that you kind of make up in your mind,” Rychcik said of the extra emphasis. “We’ve talked about it, and we’ve done a pretty good job of it. I haven’t seen any nervousness in this team in a long time, and I feel pretty comfortable. Our lineup is very comfortable.”

The lineup’s comfort might be thrown a bit out of whack with the absence of junior left fielder Erica Casacci, who is “doubtful” for the BC game and the Binghamton series, according to Rychcik. Casacci suffered an apparent head injury during a collision with senior center fielder April Setterlund last weekend against University at Albany.

Without the number-two hitter, there will be extra emphasis on the rest of the aspects of BU’s game, which was running smoothly last weekend when the team swept Albany. Luckily for the Terriers, long gone are the early-season worries about who plays what role for the team or who will get what amount of playing time.

“[Redshirt freshman right fielder Jayme Mask and] Setterlund, they need to get on base, defensively we need to make plays, pitching needs to keep us in the game,” Rychcik said.  “We’ve really become comfortable in our roles.”

Despite the calm mindset, BU will still have to defend against outfielder Jessica Phillips, who leads the conference in batting average (.459), on-base percentage (.590), slugging percentage (.917), home runs (13) and RBIs (40).
Rychcik, though, is confident that BU is the better team and will take at least two of the three games this weekend.

“We’ve played a little bit of a better schedule than everybody – so that means our pitching has pitched against some better talent, our hitting has hit off better pitchers, our defense has been up against some quicker people,” Rychcik said. “I’m not being cocky about it, but I do think we are a better talent, better athletes, better prepared athletes. That doesn’t guarantee anything and we’re still going to play it.”

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