COLUMN: Big weekend ahead for softball
Central Michigan softball defeated Eastern Michigan 5-2 on a walk-off home run Saturday. The Chippewas wore pink jerseys for breast cancer awareness.
A weekend of opportunity awaits the Central Michigan University softball team as the surging Chippewas welcome a pair of Mid-American Conference East Division schools to Mount Pleasant.
CMU, winners of its last four games, will take on the conference-leading Kent State Golden Flashes in a doubleheader on Friday and the struggling University of Buffalo Bulls over the weekend.
Kent State
The Golden Flashes have won a conference best 28 games and are hitting the cover off of the ball. Through 37 games, the team have a batting average of .296 with a struggling percentage of .484 and 41 homeruns.
KSU’s hot hitting is led by talented sophomore infielder Maddy Grimm. The Pennsylvania-native has already broken the school’s single season home run record with 14 long balls in 31 games. Grimm has also batted in 39 runs and struck out 17 times.
With close to 200 runs scored this season, CMU sophomore Rachael Knapp will be vital in cooling off the Golden Flash bats. The duel between the star pitcher and the Bulls bats will be must watch softball as some of the conference’s best square off.
Knapp has surrendered only five homeruns in 121 innings pitched. She’s also holding opposing batters to a .191 batting average and struck out 135.
Knapp will need to pitch a near perfect game to fend off the Flashes who have scored over two runs in 26 games this season.
Buffalo Bulls
The Bulls are the only MAC team left without a conference win. Losers of 12-straight, UB has a 1-15 record when the team is away from the friendly confines of upstate New York.
Buffalo has struggled from inside the circle with four pitchers combining for an earned run average of 6.18. The Bulls have surrendered 274 runs off of 344 hits.
UB is also prone to giving up plenty of extra base hits with 91 surrendered this season.
This will give the Chippewas’ bats a chance to shine. Shortstop Trista Cox leads the team with a .343 batting average and 25 runs. Her ability to get on base will open up opportunities for the rest of the lineup to bring her home and add to the 142 runs the team has scored this season.
If the Chippewas can take advantage of a good Knapp performance against Kent State and hit the ball around against Buffalo, CMU has a good chance of going 3-1 on the weekend to continue their march towards the top of the MAC standings.
