University of Minnesota Athletics
Softball Heads West to DeMarini Invitational
2/25/2009 12:00:00 AM | Softball
After evening its season record at 8-8 last weekend with a 4-1 record at the Islander Invitational in Corpus Christi, Minnesota heads west to California this weekend. The Gophers will face arguably their stiffest competition to date, with No. 5 Stanford on their weekend slate along with Nevada and Oregon State, which are both receiving attention in the national polls. In their other two games over the weekend, Minnesota will meet host Cal State-Fullerton and UC Riverside.
Minnesota returns to the DeMarini Invitational - formerly known as the Worth Invitational - this weekend for the first time since the 2007 season, which also marks the Gophers most recent meetings with tournament foes Stanford, Cal State-Fullerton and Oregon State. The Gophers have a combined 7-26 record all-time against this weekend’s opponents.
Senior pitcher Briana Hassett has led the Gophers thus far this season, compiling an 8-3 record with a 1.34 earned run average. The Eagan, Minn., native also has 121 strikeouts on the year. Offensively, the Gophers have been led by Heidi Carls, who has steadily moved up the Minnesota batting order, while leading the team with a .279 average and eight RBIs. Senior third baseman Colleen Conway, who led the Gophers with a .331 average a year ago, is hitting .278 and leads Minnesota with 15 hits.
No-Hitter Highlights Weekend in Texas
Briana Hassett’s no-hitter in the Gophers’ 4-1 win over Pittsburgh on Feb. 21 was the highlight of a solid weekend for Minnesota at the Islander Invitational in Corpus Christi, Texas. The Gophers also recorded wins over host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (5-1), Dayton (10-1) and Loyola-Chicago (1-0).
Briana Sudenga hit .417 at the tournament and scored three runs, while Malisa Barnes had a pair of multi-hit games and delivered a walkoff double in the win over Loyola-Chicago. Hassett continued to rack up strikeouts, recording 42 in just 24 weekend innings.
Sophomores Mallory Mitchell (Forney, Texas) and Natalie Neal (Frisco, Texas), both natives of the Lone Star State, played in their home state at the collegiate level for the first time last weekend. Both Mitchell and Neal earned two starts at designated player.
Gophers Endure Up-and-Down Classic
For the second consecutive season, Golden Gopher softball hosted its mid-winter invitational at the Metrodome. The four-day, round-robin competition included 16 games featuring six different teams from around the country. Minnesota played six games during the tournament, posting a 1-5 record. The Gophers struggled offensively for the majority of the weekend, but the Minnesota coaching staff did find some bright spots. Freshman outfielder Dannie Skrove showed consistency at the plate, posting a pair of multi-hit games and playing solid defense in center field.
Senior pitcher Briana Hassett and sophomore first baseman Malisa Barnes also had solid weekends for Minnesota, earning spots on the all-tournament team. Hassett recorded her third complete game shutout of the young season in a 4-0 win over Northern Iowa on Feb. 13, and struck out an eye-popping 50 hitters in just 30.1 innings during the tournament. Barnes led the Gophers offensively, hitting .412 (7-for-17) over the weekend, including a 3-for-4 performance against Western Illinois in an 11-3 loss on Feb. 12.
The weekend at the Metrodome included a special Golden Gopher Softball Hall of Fame induction ceremony honoring former Minnesota great Jordanne Nygren and longtime umpire and Minnesota softball supporter Les Novak. The pair became the 49th and 50th members of the elite group.
Hassett Leads Gophers in Tampa
For the third consecutive year, Minnesota got its season underway with a trip to the Sunshine State. After beginning the 2007 and 2008 campaigns in Jacksonville, the Gophers’ season got underway this year on the opposite coast at the Louisville Slugger Tournament hosted by the University of South Florida in Tampa.
The Gophers posted a 3-2 record in their opening weekend of play, highlighted by a 4-3 win over host USF, which was receiving votes in the preseason USA Today/NFCA coaches poll.
Freshman Skrove Turning Heads
Dannie Skrove came to the U’ this fall as one of the top recruits out of the state of Minnesota. Possessing great speed, an able left-handed bat and solid softball instincts, the Minnesota coaching staff has watched the Zimmerman, Minn., native enjoy some early success this season as the team’s regular center fielder. Having started 14 of the team’s 16 games in center, including each of the last 12, Skrove leads the team with a .345 slugging percentage and a .447 on-base percentage so far this season.
Hassett Carrying Pitching Staff
After recording the third-highest single-season strikeout total in school history last year with 276 K’s, senior Briana Hassett has started the 2009 season where she left off a year ago.
Through just three weekends, Hassett has already racked up 121 strikeouts in just 80.1 innings. She has completed each of the 10 games she has started this year and has notched complete game shutouts in four of those contests.
Through games played Feb. 21, Hassett ranks among the Big Ten Conference leaders in an array of pitching statistics:
Stat Hassett Big Ten rank
Strikeouts 121 1st
Wins 8 t-1st
Innings 80.1 2nd
Opp. BA .141 3rd
Patience is a Virtue
Entering play this weekend, Minnesota hitters have drawn a Big Ten-best 53 walks. Although senior catcher Shannon Stemper has struggled a bit out of the gate with a .238 batting average, her 12 walks lead the team and have helped her to a .429 on-base percentage. Three other Gophers are among the Big Ten leaders in free passes:
Walks Big Ten rank
Shannon Stemper 12 t-1st
Colleen Conway 8 t-6th
Malisa Barnes 7 t-8th
Dannie Skrove 7 t-8th
Get 'em Over, Get 'em In
Redshirt freshman second baseman Sammie Howard leads the team and is third in the Big Ten with four sacrifice bunts this season. Howard’s ability to get bunts down and move baserunners has contributed to her holding down the second spot in the Gophers' order for each of the last seven contests.
Three of those sacrifices came last weekend in Corpus Christi, and two of Howard’s three sacrifice bunts last weekend led to a Minnesota run.
Movin' On Up
Left fielder Heidi Carls has been one of the Gophers’ most consistent hitters this season, having recorded four multi-hit games and leading the team with a .279 average through 16 games. The junior also leads the team with eight RBIs.
After beginning the season as the sixth-place hitter in the Minnesota lineup at the Louisville Slugger Tournament in Tampa, Carls moved up to the fifth position for the majority of the Gophers’ Metrodome Classic contests. Last weekend, Julie Standering bumped Carls up once more into the cleanup spot where she has hit between Malisa Barnes and Shannon Stemper each of the last four games.
