All season long, the Virginia softball team has talked about bringing it all together. In a weekend when the Cavaliers finally began to do just that -- pitching, hitting and defending at opportune times -- they still couldn't put together a complete tournament.
Virginia hosted the Hoo's Who Tournament, a round-robin-style tournament featuring Bowling Green (7-15), East Carolina (35-8), Rutgers (0-16) and Toledo (14-9), this weekend at The Park. Every team played the others at least once Friday and Saturday and, based on their play, seeding was determined for a Sunday bracket play tournament.
The Cavaliers won all four games on Friday and Saturday, thus giving them the top seed coming into Sunday's bracket play. That momentum, however, could not carry them as Virginia lost to fourth-seeded Toledo 2-1 Sunday morning in the first round.
Sunday's game was a pitcher's duel from the start, with freshman Whitney Holstun taking the circle for the Cavaliers against Toledo's Stephanie Moore. Each pitcher held the other team scoreless through the first five innings, and it was not until the sixth inning that the action picked up.
Lead-off hitter Valerie Moxim got on for the Rockets with an infield single. After Holstun got the next two batters out, she faced clean-up hitter Erica Singer, a .300 hitter who had been batting well all weekend. Singer smacked a low pitch to right-center field for a triple, scoring the runner on first.
"It was a good pitch," Holstun said. "It dropped like it was supposed to. [Singer] is just a really good hitter and hit the low pitch."
Virginia then replaced Holstun with junior Erin Horn, who gave up a single to senior designated player Kim Pettitt that scored Singer from third before getting out of the inning.
Virginia would not go down without a fight, however. In the bottom of the seventh, with runners on second and third and one out, the Cavaliers were able to score a run off of sophomore Elea Crockett's sacrifice fly to center field. On the same play, however, the runner on second, freshman Lindsey Preuss, was caught trying to advance to third base, getting the third out and ending the game.
Throughout the game, the Cavaliers had multiple opportunities to score with runners on base but could not convert. Three times, once in the fourth, fifth and seventh innings, Virginia had a runner on third base and could not bring her home. The lack of timely hitting -- something that has plagued the Cavaliers all year -- came back to haunt Virginia certainly Sunday.
"We were getting people on," Virginia coach Cheryl Sprangel said. "We had runners on third three times and then had two strikeouts [and the put out]. We have to do a better job offensively, that's just the bottom line. If you don't do it offensively, that's when the defensive errors glare more because you have no support."
Overall, the Cavaliers went 4-1 on the weekend, which was the first time all year they posted a winning record in a weekend tournament.
"We have come a long way," junior right fielder Jessica Taylor said. "This weekend was a huge stride for us."
Taylor went 1-2 on Sunday with a triple.
While being at home at The Park helped the Cavaliers take positive steps forward, Virginia still stumbled when trying to pull all aspects of the game together.
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