Traveling to Northwestern this weekend, the University of Wisconsin softball team hopes to maintain its hot streak and improve its conference record along the way.
The Badgers have gained a ton of confidence over the last few weeks with a 7-2 record and a long home winning streak. The confidence has been built around steady offensive production, tightened team defense, sharpened mentality on the field, strong pitching and a generally relaxed and fun environment.
Wisconsin (18-28) will face the first real test of its progress this weekend when it takes on stiffer competition at Northwestern (24-19).
While its last seven wins have come against teams with losing records, UW’s two most recent losses have come against ranked opponents,so Northwestern will be the first true challenge the team has faced in over two weeks.
Still, after two extremely disappointing seasons, the Badgers feel as though they are finally up to the challenge.
“I think we’re going to come out with a lot of confidence and do really well,” junior outfielder Ashley Hanewich said. “We’re all really high right now, so hopefully we can transfer that over. And I think we will without much trouble.”
Senior and No. 1 pitcher Letty Olivarez felt the same way.
“We’ve all just been focusing on having that positive feeling of winning, so hopefully we can carry that over,” Olivarez said.
The group most responsible for that carryover will be the six starting freshmen on the squad who have developed well over the 2010 season.
Molly Spence quickly became the Badgers’ offensive leader in just about every category early in the year, and she has yet to give up those leads.
Spence began the season at the DH position, but her defensive improvement along with sophomore first baseman Karla Powell’s offensive deficiency placed Spence as the starting first baseman halfway through the year, a spot in which she remains.
Freshman Shannel Blackshear cemented her place at third base and in the cleanup spot, second only to Spence in offensive stats. Second baseman Whitney Massey, at only 5-foot-5 and with a slender build, has been one of the Badgers best power hitters with a .455 slugging percentage, hitting three home runs and four triples — a freshman record.
Next year, the infield will lose one member, senior leader Katie Soderberg, but the team is confident the now-injured Jordan Skinner will fill in nicely. The outfield will return two juniors, Jen Krueger and Hanewich, as well as freshman Kendall Grimm. Krueger will have to return to her sophomore form when she led Wisconsin’s offense for the team to succeed. Hanewich has power but needs a more consistent batting average and Grimm will have to place her slap bunts more precisely next year as the team will rely on its offense quite a bit more.
Freshman pitcher Meghan McIntosh will have the biggest shoes to fill as she takes over senior leader and star pitcher Olivarez’ position.
McIntosh has been pitching better as the year has progressed, but she still struggles against better hitters. Soderberg and Olivarez are sure to be missed, but there are definitely players to at least partly fill in their place.
“Both those players are great leaders, so I think that might be something that we may have trouble replacing, but even some of the freshmen are great leaders, and I think they’ll be able to take those roles,” Hanewich said. “Letty is a good pitcher, but Meghan’s doing really great.”
Olivarez believes in the young pitcher as well.
“She’s done a really good job at making adjustments and working on what she needs to work on, and she struggled in the beginning, but she was injured,” Olivarez said. “So, I think she just needs more time to work on what she needs to work on.”
Spence also feels the team has grown and learned enough to improve next season and to finish off this season in a strong fashion.
“We’re a young team, and we played a lot of games, so we all kind of know what to expect,” Spence said. “It’s the experience we have now.”
Olivarez is just looking forward to her last few games as a Badger and is glad the mentality has changed from the darker days of the past two years.
“We’ve been stressful for so long for many years, and finally we’re able to throw it all out and have fun on the field,” Olivarez said.
And what does she expect from herself and the team?
“Some wins, obviously.”
