After narrowly avoiding a sweep by conference rivals Stony Brook University, the Boston University women’s softball team will return to BU Softball Field Wednesday afternoon to take on Bryant University.
The last time the Terriers (20-11, 4-2 America East) played Bryant (7-17) was earlier this season in a slugfest the Terriers won 13-3. The Terriers hit a school-record 19 hits, breaking a 19-year-old record.
“I don’t want us to be too confident,” said BU coach Shawn Rychcik. “You know, we should be able to do a good job against them. I think we’re a better team, and as long as we do what we’re supposed to do we’ll be fine.”
The game was marked by high offensive production by the Terriers as seven of nine players had at least two hits. Sophomores Jayme Mask, Amy Ekart and Chelsea O’Connor led the team with three hits each and rookie left fielder Mandy Fernandez recorded her first career home run and drove in a team-high four runs.
BU dominated the game from the beginning, putting three runs on the board in the first inning and continuing to put points up as junior pitcher Erin Schuppert held Bryant to three hits and three earned runs.
“You start looking past them or you take them too light, and you can get yourself in trouble,” Rychcik said.
It is this type of slugging power that the struggling BU offense hopes to recreate on Wednesday afternoon. In the Terriers’ most recent game, they scored eight runs, all off of home runs, ending an offensive slump that had plagued BU for the last three games.
“I think we’re pretty focused. We got handed a pretty good piece of humble pie this weekend,” Rychcik said. “So I think our goal is to get back on track and get ready for conference.”
Mask leads the Terriers’ offense as her .367 batting average and .436 on base percentage are both team-highs. Also contributing to the Terriers’ offense is Ekart, who, despite struggles in the series against Stony Brook, still leads the team with 20 RBIs.
This offensive push may be aided by the weakness of the Bryant pitchers, whose collective ERA stands at 7.33 and whose opponents have a .372 batting average.
The Terriers’ pitchers, on the other hand, have a team ERA of 2.48, led by sophomore Holli Floetker’s 1.83 mark. Schuppert especially has played a critical role in recent games for the Terriers, hurling two full games on Sunday against Stony Brook and allowing Floetker to recover from a difficult outing on Saturday.
The Terriers’ strong pitching is also backed by a strong defense. Despite a couple errors that cost them runs against Stoby Brook, BU’s defense still has an impressive .972 fielding percentage.
“We worked on some outfield stuff [in practice],” Rychcik said. “Not related so much to what we’re doing immediately and then we went back and worked on some hitting.”
Despite the fact that Bryant is not a conference opponent, Rychcik said he is not willing to brush off any game as unimportant.
“It’s good that we continue playing and we continue to compete,” Rychcik said. “And you know, try to get better.”
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