After beginning the season 0-8 in conference play, the Wisconsin softball team picked up its first Big Ten win of the season over the weekend as the Badgers split a two-game series with Purdue at Goodman Diamond.
On Saturday, the Badgers were strong in all facets of the game and rode the terrific pitching performance of their ace, Letty Olivarez.
Purdue only managed to get four runners on base and never threatened Olivarez, who looked strong and confident on the mound in her complete-game win. Most importantly, Olivarez kept Purdue’s best hitters in most categories, Liane Horiuchi and Molly Garst, off of the bases entirely, where they are a combined 64-69 on stolen base attempts.
Freshman Whitney Massey scored the first and third runs for the Badgers. She went 1-2 with a walk at the plate and used a steal to set up her second run.
While Massey did her job at the top of the order of getting on base, it was the middle of the lineup that stepped up and knocked her in. Shannel Blackshear had two RBIs, and Molly Spence drove in a run on a two-out double. That was all the team needed as Olivarez coasted through for the team’s first Big Ten win.
Massey credits the win to overall focus and back-to-basics softball on all sides of the game.
“Trying not to do too much,” Massey said. “We’ve been working on this for a while now; it’s nice that it finally all came together. I think we did awesome. I think we finally brought all of our game — defense, offense and pitching.”
The defense also stepped up for Wisconsin, as the Badgers did not commit an error facing a speedy Purdue team, holding them 0-for-1 on stolen base attempts in the first game.
It seemed the defense and Olivarez played as a unit, which they haven’t done very often this year.
“[Olivarez] did awesome,” Massey said. “Every time a runner got on, she followed it up with a strikeout or we followed it up with a nice defensive play. She gave us balls we could play or catch.”
It was a much different game Sunday, though the same pitchers took the mound for both teams.
Purdue chipped away at Wisconsin inning by inning, and the two batters that Wisconsin held off the bases the previous game finally created problems, reached base five times and batted in two runners, though Wisconsin did limit their stolen bases to two on four attempts.
Olivarez was less effective on the second day, as the Purdue players made some adjustments from the previous day.
She went three and two-thirds innings, giving up two runs, one earned, four hits and five walks before being lifted for Meghan McIntosh. Olivarez took the loss, sending her record to 7-19 on the year. The Badgers improved to 11-25 and 1-9 in conference, while the Boilermakers moved to 20-22, 3-5 in conference.
“They did a good job of expecting what I was going to throw at them,” Olivarez said. “They came out there attacking and they laid off the rise ball, which I felt like I was able to get them with yesterday.”
Purdue’s starter, Suzie Rzegocki, was much stronger on Sunday than in Saturday’s game, giving up only one run and striking out six in her complete game win.
“She got us on the change up and I think we could have done a little better with that,” Olivarez said. “She threw it to a lot of our hitters, more than once in an at bat and different at bats. So if we had adjusted to that, we would have been more successful.”
Designated hitter Karla Powell had an especially difficult time with the changeup as she struck out twice and was out in front of many pitches.
Throughout the series, Powell, the Badgers’ No. 5 hitter, went 0-for-6 with four strikeouts and left eight Badgers on the bases. The bottom of the order, as a whole, hasn’t been faring well as Katie Soderberg was the only UW player with a hit in either game from the five through nine hitters in the order.
While the team seemed very joyful and relieved after their win Saturday, the mood was quite different after the loss on Sunday. UW felt they had a very good chance in both of these games, but Sunday they just didn’t take it.
“I think yesterday we came out more aggressive than we did today,” Soderberg said Sunday. “Yesterday was a good day, and to be honest, we should’ve swept them and we didn’t so I’m disappointed right now. Hopefully we’ll come back Tuesday with some wins.”
