Syracuse women’s softball dominated by the Louisville Cardinals
Syracuse women's softball dominated by the Louisville Cardinals
Two games in one day for the Syracuse women’s softball team against Louisville. The home opener for Syracuse started at 10 a.m. with a 5-3 loss, but the Orange had a chance to wipe the slate clean shortly after in game two of the doubleheader.
Unfortunately, game 2 went even less favorably. Taylor Roby didn’t need to use a certain bat brand to win the award for Louisville’s slugger of the day. She had 6 RBIs in the second contest (7 total on the day) and hit a grand slam in the top of the 6th that made it an 8 run game by the time the Orange had their last shot to comeback. No comeback ensued, and Syracuse lost 8-0.
Syracuse Head Coach Shannon Doepking says that her pitchers didn’t do enough to mitigate Roby’s impact.
“And I told our pitchers, like, I don’t really care about solo shots,” Doepking said. “It’s the walks before the home runs that are killing us.”
Compounding the offensive explosion from Taylor Roby was the Orange’s inability to generate their own offense. They finished with only one hit, which came from Tessa Galipeau. Doepking said the competitiveness was not up to snuff on the day.
“The lack of competitiveness today was just not us, and I think tomorrow obviously, it’s not being so quick to go internal and be quicker to just compete,” Doepking said.
Doepking says the timing on at-bats left something to be desired.
“Terrible,” Doepking said. “Terrible — I mean, we knew the timing was going to be an issue. It’s been an issue pretty much the entire season.”
Infielder Madelyn Lopez, who did reach base after a fielding error, says that her process for getting over today’s tough outing is maintaining a positive attitude.
“You know, once you find the ball, it finds you again, so you gotta have a good attitude and keep going,” Lopez said.
The Orange were coming off a 26-game road trip to start the year, and although their first regular season game in Orange country was disappointing, coach Doepking says that it felt good to be back.
“It’s nice to be here,” Doepking said. “Obviously, we were able to sleep in our own beds and get into a routine, so it’s great to try and unwind a little bit, catch up on some sleep, catch up on some school work.”
The loss drops Syracuse to 10-17-1 on the year. They will finish the season series against Louisville tomorrow.