The Syracuse softball team has won 14 of its last 20 games, boasts a 5-3 record in the Big East and sits atop or near the top of many of the conference’s statistical categories.

The reason for the recent hot streak may be the same reason the Orange started 0-13.

The Orange scheduled perennial powerhouses like Baylor and Purdue to start the season. Though those games resulted in a poor record to start the year, facing the elite teams has also made the Big East less intimidating.

‘I mean, when you’re facing the best pitchers in the nation and the best hitters in the nation it’s something that, no questions asked, is going to prepare you for the Big East,’ second basemen Lindsay Wasek said. ‘I feel like its essential that we do something like that, travel down south and play those teams because it just makes us better.’

The Orange will try to continue its conference success this weekend when it travels to Louisville to face the Cardinals today in a doubleheader at 4 p.m. Sunday SU will play another road doubleheader against South Florida and its Big East-leading 7-1 record.

During Big East play, SU (14-19) is batting .300, the only team to hit above the .300 plateau in the conference. Syracuse also ranks third in the conference in slugging percentage (.432), on-base percentage (.371) and runs scored (34).

The difficult early season schedule has translated into Big East wins just as head coach Leigh Ross drew it up. After seeing the nation’s best, SU now digs into the batter’s box extremely confident it will produce.

‘When you’re facing a Big East pitcher you’re like, ‘Oh, OK I’ve faced one of the top five pitchers in the nation,’ Wasek said. ‘I can do well against her, too. It’s just that extra confidence you get.’

Wasek entered Big East play hitting .197 and was one of four Orange players hitting below .200. The team as a whole could only manage a .243 average in non-conference play. In conference play, only two players are hitting below .295 with at least 10 plate appearances. Wasek has increased her average to .260 as a result of batting .400 in Big East play, eighth-best in the conference. Catcher Amy Kelley is batting .429, good enough for sixth in the conference.

The offense isn’t the only facet of Syracuse’s game that has seen a spike in the right direction. The pitching staff also improved through the conference schedule. SU’s ERA was 3.30 on March 28. After seven conference games it stands at 1.85, with Brittany Gardner’s 1.30 ERA leading the way, qualifying 10th in the Big East.

The tough schedule has resulted in outstanding conference numbers, but it also contributed something that can’t be seen on paper.

‘I think seeing those teams early on really helped us not only physically but mentally,’ Gardner said. ‘We had to learn to fight, and one way to do that is play those teams like that. If we got back and play those teams now it’s anybody’s game to take.’

SU will need to continue that type of domination in the Big East if it wants any chance to play those teams again in the postseason tournament. Syracuse focuses so much on the Big East because it doesn’t have the name recognition to receive an at-large bid to postseason play. Ross said she will continue scheduling elite teams but doesn’t plan on many more 0-13 starts.

‘Big East is when we really start going,’ Ross said. ‘I think in the future of the program we’d like to be thinking of our preseason as a good chance for us to get Power Points and working on our RPI, so we don’t have to just rely on the Big East and that tournament to try to get a bid to the NCAAs.’

Until then, the Orange, even after facing elite teams, has to play an unyielding Big East schedule.

‘They don’t have the name recognition,’ Gardner said. ‘But I know that they want to get that recognition, so they are going to fight.’

mibonner@syr.edu

Published on April 10, 2008 at 12:00 pm