The Syracuse softball team had been preparing for its opening tournament for the past four months. But the two things the Orange can’t simulate in the Carrier Dome, pitching from a mound and fielding on dirt, hurt it the most.

Syracuse lost all four of its games this weekend at the Getterman Classic in Waco, Texas. SU (0-4) committed 11 errors, walked 20 batters and allowed 28 runs. The Orange played only four of the six games last weekend due to rain Saturday.

‘We had a lot of walks,’ SU associate head coach Kyle Jamieson said. ‘Anytime you have a lot of walks, your defense isn’t necessarily set.’

In fact, Syracuse’s Friday morning game against Centenary turned out to be its only chance of winning a game throughout the tournament.

SU held a 3-2 lead in the seventh, but surrendered it thanks in part to three walks in the inning. The Ladies scored two runs despite one hit in the inning. Syracuse pitchers Chanel Roehner, Brittany Gardner and Angie Sagnelli combined to walk nine batters in the game.

It was the last time Syracuse would enjoy a lead in the tournament. It was also the only time it would score more than one run and wouldn’t commit an error. Syracuse would be outscored, 24-1, in the final three games of the tournament.

Friday afternoon, No. 7 Baylor held the Orange to only one hit and won 8-0 in six innings. Three of the Tigers’ eight runs were unearned.

‘They were frustrating just because we know we are better than that,’ senior Chanel Roehner said of the errors.

Rain prevented any games from occurring on Saturday, but the day off didn’t help the Orange. SU lost to Purdue in its first game Sunday, 10-0, in six innings. Syracuse only managed two hits off Boilermaker’s pitcher Dana Alcocer.

Purdue scored all 10 runs off Gardner, but only four of the runs were earned. Syracuse made five errors in the game. Gardner didn’t help her cause by walking eight batters in only four innings.

‘Brittany (Gardner), Angie (Sagnelli) and myself, we all know that we’d rather not have walks,’ Roehner said. ‘So if we keep telling ourselves the defense is behind us. We made a few errors that we can fix, but other than that we have a solid defense.’

In the final game of the weekend, SU played the Tigers again and faired better but still lost, 6-1. The defense was still shaky, committing three more errors that would result in two unearned runs.

The players and Jamieson weren’t too concerned about the defense. It was the first time the team had been on a dirt infield. For the last four months the team has only known the predictable bounces from the FieldTurf in the Dome.

The sloppy play may have been tied to walks as well. Jamieson said when the innings are prolonged by walks it makes it harder to concentrate in the field.

‘When you’re out there so long it is a little deflating,’ Roehner said. ‘But that’s where character comes in, and we really need to step it up individually at that moment and keep everyone pumped up so it doesn’t have a domino effect.’

The number of walks may have contributed to sloppy defense, and Jamieson said it’s not out of the question that coming into the dugout after a long inning hurt the offense too. SU freshman Hallie Gibbs did homer in her first collegiate at-bat against Centenary on Friday – the first freshman in the eight-year history of Syracuse softball to accomplish the feat.

Still, Gibbs’ home run did little to diminish the lingering dissatisfaction from a winless opening weekend.

‘It’s a disappointing weekend, but we’ll go back to the drawing board,’ Jamieson said. ‘We’ve been practicing against each other for four months, and we finally had some opponents that showed us some things that we need to go back and work on.’

mibonner@syr.edu

Published on February 18, 2008 at 12:00 pm