Sports: Softball

Badgers hit by poor pitching

The seventh inning of Sunday’s first game with Indiana was just one part of a bigger problem for the Wisconsin softball team.

With two out and two runners on base, sophomore pitcher Letty Olivarez gave up a three-run blast to Hoosier third baseman Jennilee Huddleston.

As the Badgers opened the Big Ten season, a common theme has prevailed: Their opponents keep circling the base paths.

“We’re tired of losing,” assistant coach Julie Wright said following Friday’s loss to Purdue. “[We’re] tired of losing the first home games, and so are the kids. We didn’t play all seven innings out there aggressively.”

In their most recent slide, Badger pitchers allowed 13 home runs in seven games. Many of these directly led to losses for the cardinal and white.

The problem for Wisconsin’s top pitchers, Olivarez and junior Leah Vanevenhoven, has been with hitting their spots.

“When we miss, we’re missing fat over the plate,” Wright said. “What Coach Martin teaches is, ‘When you miss, you miss out of the zone,’ and they have to stay aggressive with that mentality. When you lay back, that’s when you give it up down the middle.”

In Friday’s home opener against Purdue, Vanevenhoven pitched well but allowed three solo home runs. The three runs eventually proved to be enough to earn a win for the Boilermakers.

“I’m disappointed in myself,” Vanevenhoven said. “Obviously home runs are home runs, they’re the pitcher’s fault, [and] no one else can take the blame for that. We could have won. We should have won.”

Vanevenhoven took the mound again for Wisconsin in Saturday’s game with Purdue. Much like the night before, she fell victim to the long ball, this time in the form of a three-run home run.

“Plain and simple, I just left it over the plate,” Vanevenhoven said. “They took advantage of those pitches, and there’s not much I can do about that. You’ve got to keep them off the plate and not have to deal with hits like that.”

Starting her third-straight game Sunday for Wisconsin, Vanevenhoven seemed to have everything figured out, shutting out Indiana through six.

Unfortunately, she was forced from the game with a nagging finger injury. Olivarez entered the game in relief for the second straight day, hoping to shut down the Hoosiers, as she did to the Boilermakers Saturday for 4.1 innings.

She would not be so lucky. Olivarez retired two of the first three batters she faced before allowing five runs, including the three-run homer off the bat of Huddleston.

“I guess I just didn’t prepare myself somehow,” Olivarez said of her struggles. “I just let one hit come after another, and I should have never done that. I let my team down.”

Olivarez also noted that the problems she and Vanevenhoven have had with home runs could be a result of a lack of mental focus.

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Olivarez said. “I think we just second-guess ourselves sometimes, and we don’t go out there throwing what we can. I know if we went out there and just gave it our all, I’m sure we could keep the ball in the ballpark.”

Olivarez and Vanevenhoven got some relief in Sunday’s second game as freshman Kristyn Hansen took the mound. Hansen finally did something her fellow pitchers couldn’t: She kept the ball in the park as she tossed a full-game shutout, allowing only three hits.

“She kept the ball down,” Wright said of Hansen’s success. “Not only did she keep the ball in the park, but she had one mistake, then she came right back and finished the next one.

“That’s been something that’s been a problem for us,” Wright added. “We walk a kid, we have a mistake, [and] we walk another kid — that’s bad. It’s not something that’s going to help you win ball games.”

With Vanevenhoven and Olivarez combining for more than 200 innings, and Hansen pitching just under 30 innings through 39 games for Wisconsin, the Badgers’ problem could be one of fatigue.

“I think that right now we’re all just getting a little tired,” Hansen said. “We have a day off tomorrow, and coming up, we have Northern Iowa, so we’ll be ready for them. All of us as pitchers have something to work on, so we’ll work on that in practice this week.”