Wisconsin has been leveled by tough competition this year, but its recent stretch of games has shown maturity and confidence.

Mistakes that cost the Badgers in close games have been significantly decreased, and the response to those mistakes shows focus and determination. Hopefully for UW, this late season revelation will raise the team out of its disappointing form of the last two years and propel the Badgers into the winning team they were only a few years ago.

Wisconsin (18-28) has faced and lost to nine of the current top 30 teams in the nation, with its best performances coming in a 3-1 loss to California, a 3-1 loss to Fresno State and 6-4 loss to Big Ten foe Ohio State.

Now, those three teams have a combined 98-40 record, while Wisconsin’s last seven wins have come against teams with a combined 64-128 record.

The Badgers have finished 15-40 in their last two seasons, so they are sure to improve on those years, and with a group of talented freshmen the team could find the better form of years past.

In each of the four years leading up to the 15-40 seasons, Wisconsin finished .500 or better, with the best showing at 31-24 with a 11-9 record in Big Ten play and 2-11 record against ranked opponents. Wisconsin hopes to feed off the good ball they’ve been playing against weaker opposition lately and transfer that into the tougher games.

“What we did today and what we did yesterday, we just need to continue to have fun and have the confidence that we’ve been having,” freshman Molly Spence said. “We’re going to continue to fight and play that much better against the teams that are ranked.”

Senior pitcher Letty Olivarez says she just tries to focus on herself and play as hard as she can no matter whom she’s up against.

“They both were aggressive,” Olivarez said of Indiana and Notre Dame. “I though they both came out really hard, but I do think we had good hits in Notre Dame, too, so I feel it’s just been carrying out through both games. Obviously, competition level is slightly different, but I think we all try to focus on ourselves and not so much the other team.”

Spence echoed her pitcher, and said she always plays the same and never changes based on the competition in front of her.

“I don’t think there should be any difference,” Spence said. “We need to just go in and face every team the same regardless of what they’re ranked.”

Junior Ashley Hanewich feels that there are some tangible differences, though, between playing high class and lower class teams.

“Their pitching is a lot faster, more movement,” she said of the ranked teams they played. “This girl today had a rise ball but that was about it, she didn’t have the pitches that really struck me as amazing. So, she was a weaker level pitcher than what we have seen [and] it was easier to adjust to her.”

The better pitchers do throw harder than the lesser ones, but speed doesn’t necessarily determine what’s easier or harder for some hitters.

“I’m always confident if the pitcher is worse, but some of the girls like the faster pitching,” Hanewich said. “I like the moderate, so for me, it was a confidence booster.”

Hanewich responded by nailing a no doubt walk off home fun in the bottom of the fifth inning Sunday and stretched the Badgers’ home winning streak to seven games.

Even though the team has been playing worse competition lately, it still speaks to the character of the team that the Badgers have won as many games as they have this year, especially with the overall competition they’ve faced.

The team is made up of eight freshmen, two sophomores, four juniors and two seniors, with six freshmen often in the starting lineup.

The team had a tendency for errors and base running mistakes earlier in the year, but the play in those areas has improved greatly over the season.

Two dropped fly balls put the Badgers in tough spots in two of their last four games, but due to a sharpened focus, they didn’t allow those errors to turn into any runs, which likely would have been the case only a few weeks ago.

The girls credit this to getting to know each other more and being more relaxed all together.

“We’ve worked on more of a calm environment,” Olivarez said of the Badgers’ process throughout the season. “We’ve seen a lot of that in the beginning of the season on the field so we’re just working on trying to be relaxed and just have fun as we’re going through the locker room.We play music and stuff like that, even during practice so it’s nice.”