Last road trip has Badgers visiting Minnesota
May 11, 2010 | Softball
May 11, 2010
MADISON, Wis. -- The Wisconsin softball team makes its last road trip of the season on Wednesday, taking on Border Battle rival Minnesota in a doubleheader. First pitch is set for 4 p.m., with game two set to follow approximately 20 minutes after the conclusion of game one.
Wisconsin leads the all-time series against Minnesota, 15-13, while the series is tied 6-6 for games played in Minneapolis. The Gophers have won four of the last five meetings, but the teams split a two-game series last season in Madison.
Minnesota enters the contest having lost 15 straight games, including a sweep at home against Iowa last weekend. Ten of the losses in the current slide have been by five runs or more.
Offensively, only three Gophers are batting higher than .230, while the team is batting .219 as a whole. Malisa Barnes leads the team with a .325 average, recording eight doubles and three home runs on the year. In terms of power, Alex Davis has a team-leading nine homers and .507 slugging percentage.
An injury to starter Lacey Middlebrooks in April has left Alissa Koch as the only pitcher left on the Gophers’ roster. Koch, who is still searching for her first win of the year at 0-21, has a 6.37 earned run average in 148.1 innings. For the season, Koch has 119 strikeouts to 96 walks, while opponents are batting .334 off of her.
Wisconsin enters the contest having won three of its last four Big Ten games. After sweeping Indiana two weekends ago, the Badgers visited Evanston, Ill., last weekend, and took one of two from Northwestern.
For most of the season, freshmen Molly Spence and Shannel Blackshear have led the Badgers' offense.
Spence leads the team in several offensive categories, including batting average (.362), slugging (.630) and on-base percentage (.443). She has set or tied numerous records already this season. Her 38 RBI are a freshman record and are tied for the most in a single season at UW. Other records set this year by Spence include runs scored by a freshman (34) and total bases by a freshman (87). In addition, she is within reach of setting freshman records for batting average, slugging, on-base percentage, walks and stolen bases.
Blackshear has been the hottest hitter on the team as of late, however. In her last three games, the Sierra Vista, Ariz., native has gone 7-for-10 with four runs, four RBI, two doubles and a home run. She has gotten on base at a .727 clip over that time and has a 1.200 slugging percentage.
Wisconsin’s pitching staff looks to rebound after shaky performances against Northwestern. In 13 innings in the two-game series, senior Letty Olivarez and freshman Meghan Mcintosh combined for 18 earned runs, 18 walks (five of which were intentional) and four home runs with 12 strikeouts.
However, in her three starts prior to the NU series, Olivarez was 2-0 with a 1.58 ERA in 17.2 innings. In addition, she enjoyed a stellar 10-2 strikeout-to-walk ratio over that time.
Fans can follow all the action from the doubleheader with the Gameday Blog and Gametracker.
