The Syracuse softball team traveled to Louisville and South Florida with the same goal it has for every game: total nine hits throughout the game. During the four-game road trip, the top of the Orange’s lineup set the table to easily eclipse its goal, but the bottom of the order didn’t deliver.

‘We talk about as a team trying to get nine hits a game,’ SU head coach Leigh Ross said. ‘If we can do that, that’s a very strong hitting team. But you can’t rely on three of four kids to get all nine of those hits.’

Besides the first game of the weekend against Louisville, in which the Orange managed four hits scattered throughout the lineup, the table setters for SU got on base but didn’t advance very far. Syracuse (14-23, 5-7) lost all four games to Louisville and South Florida this past weekend, dropping the Orange to seventh in the Big East.

In the final three games of the road trip, the first four Orange batters hit .571 (16-for-28), while the rest of the lineup mustered four hits.

After the cleanup spot the offense sputtered, and as a result, the Cardinals swept Syracuse on Friday, 6-1 and 8-5. Sunday was much of the same story, as South Florida took both games, 5-4 and 1-0.

After managing five hits against Louisville (23-15, 9-3) the struggles of the bottom half of SU’s lineup intensified in Florida. The five through nine hitters amassed one hit in the doubleheader against the Bulls (36-13, 11-1) going 1-for-29.

‘I was just a little disappointed with our hitting against South Florida,’ Ross said. ‘The bottom half of the order, we just didn’t make anything happen.’

The hitting woes proved especially costly in the pair of close games in Tampa, Fla. In the first game Syracuse had a chance to tie the game in the seventh but couldn’t convert. Trailing 5-3, leadoff hitter Jaime Kelling, who had seven hits on the four-game road trip, started the inning with a single. Chanel Roehner then reached on an error, and Hallie Gibbs drove in Kelling with a single to cut the USF lead in half.

The Orange had runners on first and second with no outs, and its four, five, and six hitters were coming to the plate.

But like most of the weekend, there weren’t many hits to speak of with runners on base. Amy Kelley’s fielder’s choice erased Roehner at third. Tilford struck out swinging, and Lindsay Wasek, who began the weekend batting .400 in the Big East, flied to right to end the game.

Against Louisville Friday, the struggles of the five through nine hitters, who went 5-for-29, were masked by the Orange being out of the game early. The .172 average is even inflated, as two of the five hits came from the fifth hitter Rachel Tilford in the second game versus Louisville.

Syracuse never led in Louisville but was able to cut the lead to one in the nightcap, but the Cardinals answered immediately tacking on two runs in the next frame.

‘At Louisville I was a little disappointed because I felt like we weren’t really focused,’ Ross said. ‘We were kind of caught off guard and playing back on our heels.’

Even after a long weekend – with six separate flights in three days amounting to four losses – Syracuse may be able to tally a mark in the moral victory column.

Excluding the first two innings of the Louisville games the Orange actually outscored the Cardinals, 6-5. In the two games against the league’s best team, SU lost both by a combined margin of two, while its five through nine hitters batted .034.

‘(The players are) recognizing, ‘Well yeah, they’re first place in the Big East, but we’re right with them,” Ross said. ‘That’s got to be good for the girls, I would think. Next time we play them they need to realize is, ‘Hey all we need to do is hit the ball better, and we can win this game.”

mibonner@syr.edu

Published on April 14, 2008 at 12:00 pm