It was a marathon, but it turned out to be successful in the end. The Boston University softball team opened up America East Conference play this weekend by taking two of three games from the University of Vermont.
The Terriers (15-15, 2-1 America East) played a full game Saturday and three and a half innings of the second before inclement weather forced the umpires to suspend the later game’s final innings until Sunday. Although it appeared that the Terriers were prepared to fight through the weather, which looked as if it was letting up, the umpires had seen enough. The fact that Vermont pitcher Alison Daggett was having a difficult time gripping the ball may have influenced the decision.
“I felt comfortable that we could play through it and get some runs,” said BU coach Shawn Rychcik. “We had a runner on and had some pressure, and that will change the momentum of the game a little bit.”
Luckily for the Terriers, they had no problem picking up the momentum when they returned Sunday. Continuing the game from the bottom of the fourth inning with the score knotted at 2-2, Molly Gallagher scored on a wild pitch that put the Terriers ahead for good. BU would go on to win the game, 6-3, leaving Rychcik feeling quite good about his team’s play.
“I felt confident that Cassidi [Hardy] would get some rest and put some zeros up and we’ll get our run,” Rychcik said. “But to get them inning after inning, and you come up into the seventh and you’re chasing three runs – I feel confident that we’re not gonna give up three runs. I was real happy that we finished things off.”
The Terriers took game one in the series by a score of 3-0 on the back of Hardy. The freshman hurler, who pitched all 23 innings of the weekend because of an injury fellow pitcher Brittany Detwiler sustained during Thursday’s game against Boston College, shut down the Catamounts for the better part of the weekend. While they did get her for five runs in the final game of the series, Hardy was still seemingly unhittable in the middle innings. Fatigue did not play a factor in her few struggles.
“Working off adrenaline, you don’t get tired,” Hardy said.
Small ball was the story of the weekend, and that is what the Terriers used to get on the board in their first conference victory of the season. In what turned out to be a pitchers’ duel, Aimee Kern was matching Hardy pitch-for-pitch until a few defensive collapses spelled doom for the Catamounts in the fifth. The Vermont defense committed two errors and the Terriers capitalized. The big blow was a two-run double off the bat of Brooke Hudson.
“We talked about how we wanted to come out and get the runner in, and that’s what we did,” Rychcik said. “You look at our game and a lot of it is set up by our bunting. It’s pressure. You’re on the run and there are probably a couple of people running around on the bases.”
Even in the loss in the final game of the series, the Terriers showed resiliency by scoring a run in each of the final four innings to come back from a 4-0 deficit late in the game.
And it the bottom of the seventh, Gallagher tied it up at 4-4 in the most dramatic of ways. After leading off the inning off with a single, Gallagher moved to second off a Hudson sacrifice. With two outs, she broke for third. When the throw to third from the catcher flew into left field, Gallagher came home, sliding in to tie the game at 4-4 and sending it into extra innings.
The Catamounts went on to win in the eighth on a Kate Ramsey home run, but the Terriers were still confident with their two wins and comeback that fell just short.
“It would have been easy to say, ‘Well we’ve got one pitcher. Pack it up, we’re down four already,'” Rychcik said. “We grew today and I think it was a good sign. We started bunting the ball a little more and made some adjustments at the plate. The more pitches you see the better you are. I’m proud of the way they played, I really am. It seems to be something that the last couple of years we just don’t quit no matter what the situation is.”
All in all, it was a successful start to the America East season for the Terriers.
“I’m really proud,” Rychcik said. “We’re 2-1 now in the conference and I know that if you go 2-1 [for the rest of the season] you’ll make the playoffs. I feel good about where we’re at.”