[media-credit name=’Claire Larkins / The Badger Herald’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]

The offense of the Wisconsin softball team has been off to a fast start in the 2013 season, playing a large role in the team’s best start to a season in program history. Surprisingly, that offense failed to make an appearance in the first game of Wisconsin’s doubleheader Tuesday night.

Wisconsin (30-9, 7-5 Big Ten) came into the twin bill with Wisconsin-Green Bay (10-19, 3-6 Horizon League) averaging just over five runs per game, but it was a different story for the Badgers’ hitters against the Phoenix in their first series at Goodman Diamond this season, scoring a total of just five runs in the two games combined.

After scoring only one run in the first of back-to-back games, the Wisconsin bats woke up, scoring early in the second game with runs coming in the second and third innings.

“I think we all settled in and we really didn’t have a choice to,” senior utility player Whitney Massey said of Wisconsin’s approach at the plate in the second game. “We were all much more relaxed and having more fun up to bat.”

Wisconsin was able to generate 13 hits off Green Bay starting pitcher Lauren Danner, who had only started three games prior to Tuesday, but boasted a 2.30 ERA.

The Badgers’ biggest hit came in the sixth inning when Massey came up with the eventual game-winning hit on her eighth home run of the season, bringing in Stephanie Peace around from first base to give Wisconsin the 4-3 lead.

Massey wasn’t the only Wisconsin hitter to settle in at the plate after the first game. Senior outfielder Kendall Grimm – who had her 24-game reaching base streak snapped in Game 1 – went three-for-three in the late game, bringing her season average to .388, good for second on the team.

“I definitely had a different approach [in the second game],” Grimm said. “I wasn’t focusing on timing it up, I was just looking at see the ball, hit the ball. If it’s a good pitch, I’m going to swing at it. Even then I worked my count to two strikes a lot of times, but I still stayed mentally tough and worked hard on getting hits.”

Although the Badgers’ batters fared better in the second game against the Phoenix, UW still left a lot opportunities on the bases with 12 runners left on base.

“I think we could have done more,” Wisconsin head coach Yvette Healy said. “We could have made it easier on ourselves and we didn’t. We left it all the way down to the last six outs of the game when we were still trailing. So, it was a barn burner, but we gutted it out.”

The Wisconsin offense struggled to get anything going in the first game of its doubleheader against Green Bay’s Allison Goecks.

The Badgers managed only three hits on Goecks in the 2-1 loss, despite only striking out only four times. Massey says it was Goecks’ slower velocity of her pitches that threw off the Wisconsin hitters.

“I think it was just the change in velocity,” Massey said. “We’ve been playing Nebraska and Minnesota and, coming back to slower pitching, I think we were getting antsy up to bat.”

Goecks’ one-run effort against Wisconsin marks the only the sixth time the Badgers were held to one run or less in all 39 games this season.

Healy was impressed with the effort Goecks gave on the mound and said Wisconsin’s inability to get hits was as much a credit to her as it was to the batters.

“I give her all of the credit; she did a nice job of changing speeds and keeping our hitters off balance,” Healy said. “We’ve got a really aggressive team, so we’ve got to work on not just being aggressive, but disciplined also.”

Healy was pleased with the way her team was able to adjust at the plate Tuesday, but wants to see hitters become more patient at the plate and be able to take off-speed pitches going into this weekend’s series against Ohio State.

“We just want to see them get better pitches, get their pitch to swing at,” Healy said. “I think we took a lot of very good fast pitches and then swung at a lot bad off-speed ones. If we can flip that mentality, I think it will help us against Ohio State.”