FULTON, Mo.—The No. 21 ranked William Woods University softball team won the American Midwest Conference regular season title this past weekend in Arkansas, which has earned the team not only an automatic bid to the NAIA Opening Round, but the No. 1 seed in the AMC Tournament, which is set to begin on Friday afternoon against the No. 8 seeded Hannibal-LaGrange Lady Trojans. First-pitch will be thrown at 2 p.m., with game two following at 4 p.m.
WWU took home the AMC regular season title for the first time since 2009, after sweeping past Williams Baptist and Lyon College.
"It is nice to know we are headed onto Nationals and the fruits of our labor this year have paid off," said head coach
Tracy Gastineau. "We still, however, want that second trophy and that second line on the banner, as a tournament title would help our seeding at the NAIA Opening Round and give us the best opportunity to advance there. We obviously have something to play for, but it is nice to be a bit more relaxed about it and not have to worry about this being our last game," she added.
The Owls (34-15; 20-2 AMC), dominated the last three weeks of the regular season, as they won 17 out of their last 18 games, including winning the final eight games by a combined score of 56-12.
The 20 conference wins are the most in program history and coach Gastineau knew something special was going to happen early on. "This fall when we played, I saw some great things with our newcomers that happened just in practice alone," she added. "We have had some really good years' here in pitching and hitting, but our pitchers have given us a chance to win a lot this year, while our offense has come through in big games when needed."
During the last three weeks of the season, the Owls batted .395, outhit their opponents 195-71, had a slugging percentage of .547 and an on-base percentage of .457. The pitching was just as fantastic, as
MacKenzie Bowden,
Julie Scheer and
Becca Schemmer held a 0.94 ERA and opposing hitters batted just .179 against the hurlers.
The past eight games have been just as good, as the Owls batted .374 and were led by
Macy Wierschem's .588 average (10-for-17), with five runs scored, three doubles, one triple, four RBI and a slugging percentage of .882.
Emily Murphy continues to swing the bat well at the dish, as she is batting .500 (10-for-20), with six runs scored and four RBI. Senior
Lindsey LeCuru has scored a team-high nine runs during the eight-game winning streak, while also batting .480 (12-for-25), with seven RBI.
The most impactful hitter the final two weeks of the season was junior
Caroline Sicht, who batted .444 (8-for-18), with three runs scored and a team-high 12 RBI.
Five of those RBI came in game two against WBC, where she smoked her second grand slam in the month of April over the wall, which propelled the Owls to a 7-2 victory.
"She (Caroline) and Emily (Murphy) have been on fire as of late," said Gastineau. "I think with Caroline's grand slam against Williams Baptist was obviously big, but her at-bat before, she struck out with a runner on. After that, I talked to the team and said we need to get tough at the plate, make contact and sure enough, Caroline responded in a huge way for us."
On the rubber the last eight games of the season, senior Bowden was nearly unhittable in 23.0 innings pitched, as the Hartsburg, Mo., native, went 3-0, held a perfect 0.00 ERA, allowed four runs (zero earned) on eight hits and struck out 28 batters.
Scheer, who is a perfect 7-0 on the year, is 2-0 in her last 10.0 innings on the mound, allowing one run and striking out seven to go along with her 0.70 ERA. Schemmer, is 3-0 in 21.0 innings pitched the past eight games, allowing five earned runs and has totaled nine strikeouts.
"Our pitchers are gamers, as you have to have some mental toughness to get through a long regular season and deal with the ups-and-downs," said Gastineau. "On our staff, we have two seniors (Bowden, Schemmer) and Lindsey (LeCuru) in the outfield, so there is a sense of urgency for them that this is it, which gives them some extra motivation to keep the season going," she added.
It will be déjà vu for the Owls in the AMC Quarterfinals this year, as they play host to Hannibal-LaGrange University (19-28; 9-13 AMC) for the second straight season.
Last year, the then No. 5 seeded Lady Trojans came into Backer Sports Complex and shocked the No. 4 seeded Owls, as they took game one 7-2. WWU, however, responded winning the final two games (9-0, 1-0) of the series behind stellar pitching and timely hitting. "HLG is always a hard team to play, as they gave us everything they had last year," said Gastineau.
Hannibal-LaGrange looks to the AMC Tournament as a fresh start, as the Lady Trojans have dropped four of five and eight of their last 10 games.
The team has a batting average of .269, and are led by Taylor Lewis' .363 average (33-for-91) in 31 games, totaling 16 runs, five doubles, one home run and eight RBI. Abby Garcia and Kristen Lee both provide the power in the lineup, as the duo is batting .327, while combining for 41 runs scored, 16 doubles, five home runs and 39 RBI.
On the mound, the staff has a team ERA of 3.82 and are led by Katy Akins 2.66 earned run average in 23 appearances. The hurler is 6-12 in 115.2 innings pitched, allowing 44 earned runs and has struck out a team-high 104 batters. Bobbi Henderson leads the team with seven victories to go along with her respectable 2.82 ERA in 104.1 innings, while Melissa Stenborg is 6-2 on the year and thrown five complete games.
"In game two when we played them last, it was 1-0 until the bottom of the sixth, I know we won 5-0, but they constantly play us tough and their batters hit off Mac (MacKenzie) better than anyone in our conference," said Gastineau. "They are a scrappy team and at this point in the season we can't look past anyone, but it will be nice to play at home and the excitement of that will hopefully carry over to the field and at the plate."
Fans stay updated on wwuowls.com tomorrow night for a full recap and scores from Backer Sports Complex.
