Despite being plagued by injuries, the Boston University softball team is hoping to resume its season with a win in its home opener today against the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Today’s game will be the first in 11 days for the Terriers (10-17) after weather caused four games – two at home against Harvard University and a doubleheader at the University of Rhode Island – to be postponed. BU coach Amy Hayes said that the postponements were frustrating.
“We’ve been on the road a lot and we’re just ready to play,” she said. “It’s a little disappointing to come back from Florida and get snow. It just makes you want to get out there.”
While most BU students were vacationing, the softball team spent Spring Break competing in Florida, playing 12 games in a span of eight days. The team went 5-7 on the trip.
Now the Terriers are back in Boston and ready to play their first home game of the season on BU’s softball field, though Hayes acknowledged that a BU win won’t come easily.
“[UMass] is one of the top challenges to us,” she said. “They’re the best team in the Northeast.”
Last year the Minutewomen (9-11) bested BU 3-2, but Hayes said there is no added pressure to win Wednesday’s game.
“It’s a rivalry that is always there. It’s like Boston College, Northeastern [University] and Harvard [University],” she said. “There are teams that you always want to beat because they’re local, but playing UMass will give us a good assessment of where we are.”
BU has big plans for this season, having made two consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances in the past two years, but the beginning of this year has been difficult.
“Up to this point, we’ve been up and down,” Hayes said. “We’ve been banged up by injury. Two of our freshmen pitchers have fractures in their pitching hands.”
On top of playing shorthanded, the team has also had to deal with the adjustment of its freshmen players. Eight of the 18 players are rookies.
“It’s always difficult to be a freshman,” Hayes said. “They have the pressure of playing at the college level and some of them have to do it injured.
“I’m really proud of them this year,” she continued. “Freshmen, they have to grow up pretty fast.”
One freshmen, especially, seems to have adjusted well. Pitcher Ashlee Freeman was named America East Rookie of the Week Tuesday. She leads the America East in appearances, innings pitched, strikeouts and wins and has compiled a 2.61 ERA over 96.2 innings pitched. In addition, she has pitched 14 complete games.
Wednesday’s game comes less than two weeks before the Terriers start conference play, and Hayes said she is looking forward to trying to run the table.
“To win, we need to get healthy,” Hayes said. “We can win a number of games at about 70 percent, which is where I think we are, but to get to our end-of-the-year goals, we can’t be injured.
“We’ve still got about six weeks. We have time to mend all our wounds.”