Orange Softball Enters Fourth Straight BIG EAST Championship
5/6/2008 12:24:17 PM | Softball
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The sixth-seeded Orange softball team travels to its fifth BIG EAST Championship in school history and its fourth straight when it takes on third-seeded Connecticut on Thursday, May 8 at 10 a.m. at Ulmer Stadium on the University of Louisville campus. The winner of that game will face either second-seeded DePaul or seventh-seeded Pittsburgh on Friday, May 9 at 2:30 p.m. The championship game will be played on Saturday, May 10 at 5 p.m.
First round games will be streamed live online at www.bigeast.tv. Fans can register for a subscription plan at www.bigeast.org. CBS College Sports will air both semifinal games on May 9 and the championship bout on May 10.
The meeting between the Orange and the Huskies will be the third of the year and SU will try and avenge a pair of losses on April 6 at the SU Softball Stadium. UConn took the first game, 9-1, in five innings and narrowly won the second, 7-6. Junior catcher Amy Kelley came within a couple of feet of winning the game when her hard-hit ball to center field got held up in the wind, allowing UConn's Micah Truax to make the catch on the warning track. If the ball would have cleared the fence, SU would have prevailed, 9-7.
The Orange secured a place in this year's tournament on April 26 with a pair of victories at Pittsburgh, 5-3 and 2-1, and finished sixth after an 8-7 come-from-behind victory against Notre Dame in the regular-season finale on May 4. It is the second straight season SU has finished sixth despite winning three more conference games in 2008.
Head coach Leigh Ross, who is making her sixth consecutive conference tournament and second in the BIG EAST, leads a team which totaled 12 conference victories, tying the 2002 team for the second highest BIG EAST win total in SU history.
This season, Syracuse has outscored its opponents, 1004-46, during games it has won. The team is batting .320 with 3.86 RBI pre game during victories. During SU's 21 wins, three Orange student-athletes batted about .400 with Kelley and junior shortstop Jamie Kelling leading the way with a .484 and .434 average. Junior first baseman Nicole Miller rounds out the group with a .400 average. SU's pitching has posted a 1.49 ERA during wins with sophomore Brittany Gardner setting the standard with a 1.02 mark.
The Huskies are competing in their 16th conference tournament and are vying for their eighth BIG EAST Title. UConn claimed four titles from 1990-93 and two more from 1995-96. Its last championship came in 2001. The Huskies have been runners-up four times. Traux has led the team of lately with a .354 average with a team-high 52 hits, including 12 doubles and seven long balls. She has posted a .596 slugging percentage, a .392 on-base mark and 23 RBI. Tricia Sullivan (14-10) has tallied a team-best 14 wins with 145 strikeouts in 147.1 innings. She has posted a 2.90 ERA behind 71 earned runs.
Adrian Autry postgame vs. Pittsburgh
Sunday, March 08
Highlights | Syracuse vs. Pitt
Saturday, March 07
Postgame | #10 Syracuse at #11 Johns Hopkins
Saturday, March 07
HIGHLIGHTS | #10 Men's Lacrosse at #11 Johns Hopkins
Saturday, March 07
