Softball outscores opponents 29-0 in doubleheader

The team looks to improve after strong offensive showing.

By Evan Glantz

Published Sept. 29, 2008

The Missouri softball team opened the season in convincing fashion.

In the first game of its fall exhibition season, Missouri beat the North Central Missouri College Lady Pirates 15-0. Freshman Chelsea Thomas and junior Jana Hainey combined to pitch a one-hit shutout, and freshman Jaydee Young added a three-run home run. The second game of the double-header ended in similar fashion, with Missouri shutting out the Meramec Magic 14-0.

"The fall is really just to get better and improve on what you're not good at," senior third baseman Lindsey Ubrun said. "It really meshes the team so hopefully when spring comes we're ready to go."

Coach Ehren Earleywine said he was pleased with what he saw. He said he uses the fall games to prepare for the real season.

"The main thing I wanted our pitchers to do in this first fall outing was just try and get ahead of hitters," Earleywine said. "You don't want to get too cute this time of year. We just want to make sure our kids are throwing strikes and working on their weaknesses. It was a good opportunity for our pitchers to try some different stuff."

Missouri has two more doubleheaders scheduled for the fall before the spring season begins.

The Tigers opened the second game with four quiet innings, and it appeared they had used all of their ammunition against the Pirates. With a 3-0 lead going into the bottom of the fifth inning, Missouri sent 10 batters to the plate and scored six runs on five hits. A three-run blast by Thomas capped the rally.

"You can tell we have some little things to fine tune but, overall, we are head and feet above where we were last year at this point," Ubrun said. "It was really good to see everybody working on the stuff they need to work on."

Senior Stacy Delaney and freshman Kristin Nottelmann both exhibited strong pitching performances. Delaney faced some trouble early but escaped a jam with some good defense and a strikeout. She pitched four innings, had seven strikeouts and allowed three hits and two walks.

Nottelmann was even more impressive, allowing no hits in three innings pitched. She also had five strikeouts and just one walk.

"I was pretty nervous, but I tried to hide it as best as I could," Nottlemann said. "Overall, it was pretty much like high school. It was just a more intense atmosphere and very, very quick-paced."

Missouri's offense gave its pitchers an early lead, scoring one run in each of the first three innings. However, two careless base running mistakes cost the team a potential rally in both the first and second inning.

"I don't know if there's one thing that we can put our finger on that the entire team needs to work on," Earleywine said. "I think it's more of a variety of things, depending upon each unique player. I think everybody has got two or three things they are trying to address, and I would say that would be more of our focus."