The Virginia softball team played an uncharacteristic series this weekend, losing all three games to visiting Boston College.
The Cavaliers (14-15, 0-3 ACC) opened the series with two wide-margined defeats during a Saturday doubleheader and finished it with a close loss in a back-and-forth thriller Sunday.
"You have to give them credit for their confidence that they showed throughout the whole series," senior catcher Alison Pittman said. "They showed that they weren't going to give up and they wanted these three wins, clearly, more than we did."
The underdog Eagles (7-15, 3-0 ACC) firmly controlled Saturday's games thanks to a high-flying offensive attack which posted a total of 27 runs throughout the weekend. During the series opener, they tallied nine runs off 12 hits en route to an easy 9-3 win.
The second game of the doubleheader offered more of the same, as Boston College's offense fired on all cylinders and propelled the team to an 11-3 victory. Freshman outfielder Tory Speer led the Eagles' offensive onslaught Saturday, going 5-for-7 at the plate, driving in six runs and blasting two home runs.
Virginia played with a depleted pitching staff throughout the series, which contributed to the Eagles' offensive prowess. Sophomore ace Melanie Mitchell came to the game battling injuries and posted an atypical line in her game one start, allowing nine runs in six innings. Mitchell's injuries prevented her from returning to the circle during the next two games.
During the second contest, freshman pitcher Erica Cipolloni also left with an injury, leaving Virginia with only one regular pitcher. Junior Stephanie Coates started Saturday's second game and was relieved by a makeshift group of position players.
"The kids that threw in the second game haven't thrown since high school, but they did what they needed to do for us to compete," coach Eileen Schmidt said. "Obviously we don't have the circle right now, so we have to make due in other places. We have to be able to step up in the other areas of the game, meaning defensively and offensively and we just didn't do that. "
In the series finale Sunday, Virginia sent sophomore Kristen Hawkins to the mound for her first career start, and she responded by throwing a complete game. After a rough first two innings during which Boston College scored five runs, including a three-run homer, Hawkins settled down and allowed only two more runs during the subsequent five innings.
The Cavaliers trailed 5-0 entering the fourth and had not scored more than two runs in a single inning all series. That changed in the bottom half of the inning, though, as the Cavaliers roped together six runs on six hits and batted through their entire lineup to take the 6-5 lead.
"In the fourth we stuck to our plan, we got a lead-off runner on base and then we stuck to our approaches when we got up to bat," Pittman said. "I feel like the other innings we were a little anxious up to bat, maybe hit the wrong pitch too early in the count and just get ourselves in a hole."
The score remained at 6-5 as the teams entered the seventh inning, but then Virginia committed two costly miscues. After the Eagles singled to start the inning, sophomore infielder Nicole D'Argento popped a foul ball down the first base line, but no Cavalier caught it. This missed play proved costly as D'Argento promptly blasted a double off the left-center field wall, which advanced the runner to third and allowed her to score on a sacrifice fly the next at-bat. One batter later, senior first baseman Gemma Ypparila hit a routine grounder to sophomore shortstop Alex Skinkis that would have ended the inning, but Skinkis bobbled the ball, allowing Ypparila to beat the throw. The error let the go-ahead run score, and gave Boston College its winning 7-6 margin.
"We just need to work on doing [the fundamentals] consistently and more efficiently," Schmidt said. "When we're a little bit frustrated and trying to do too much is when we get caught. So its keeping things simple and trying to win every single time you walk out there"
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