BY MARK ROSSMAN ’14
Layout Assistant

The women’s softball team has had a solid season this year; they currently have a 5-9 conference record, with two conference games remaining this season. Overall, the team is 13-18-1, with four games to go. The team played at Gettysburg College Tuesday and at home against Dickinson College Saturday, two important Conference league games. The team lost both games Tues- day, 10-1 and 8-0, and split Saturday with a 3-0 loss and won 3-2 win.

In terms of statistics, pitcher Justine Lohrey ’15 pitched the entire first game. In other highlight-worthy news, Ashley Hartshorn ’14 tripled into center field to bring home Rachel Laufer ’14. Later Hartshorn passed home plate off a single, hit by Alicia Kukoda ’14. In the sixth inning, Sarah Kirk ’15 scored the winning run against Dickinson to make the score 3-2.

The team has a good deal of talent and is likely to show a lot of improvement in the coming years. The team this year is composed of three first-years, nine sophomores, four juniors, and one senior. Clearly, the team is loaded toward the underclassmen, specifically the current sophomore class. Also, nearly the entire starting lineup is composed of first-years from last year. With so much time to work with one another, the team is likely to really come together in the coming years, with more experience together and more experience on the field competing at a collegiate level.

The team has already shown improvement in the season this year.

“As a team of mostly all freshmen starters last year, we needed to be stronger and smarter for the 2012 season, so we also began to incorporate newer and more advanced offensive and defensive plays and tactics,” Hartshorn said.

The team went to Clermont, Florida to train and compete over spring break, during the off-season. Here, they competed against teams from all over the country: Westfield State University, St. Joseph University, Rhode Island College, University of Minnesota Morris, Hood College, Thiel College, Ithaca College, and Bowdoin College. Among these teams, they took down Ithaca College 3-1, who at the time was ranked number 21 in the country — a very impressive team to defeat.

“For the duration of the season, the team will focus on maintaining team camaraderie and finishing the season off strongly,” Hartshorn said.

This week will be an important one for F&M softball, with its game against Muhlenberg College coming up on Saturday, another conference game matchup. In total, the team has four games left: they will be playing York College in a doubleheader on Tuesday, and on Saturday they will be playing a doubleheader at Muhlenberg College. This is crunch time for F&M softball, and now is the time to shine.

Questions? Email Mark at mark.rossman@fandm.edu.

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By TCR