The NC State softball team dominated the beginning of the season by going 16-2 before conference play and enjoying the best start in program history. Now after nine ACC games, the Pack has a 19-10 record and is 2-7 in the conference. Let’s take a look at the specifics of the softball team to try and see what’s going wrong.
Pack not measuring up against ACC’s best
NC State has faced Syracuse, No. 13 Duke, and Virginia so far in ACC play. The Pack won two of three against Syracuse (17-9, 1-5 ACC) at home, but then was crushed by Duke (23-4, 8-1 ACC) in Durham and lost three straight to Virginia (18-11, 5-1 ACC) at home. Duke and Virginia are two of the tougher teams in the conference with impressive pitching and batting. The losses from these two teams were not given, but it is very hard to beat two outstanding ACC clubs.
Pitching rotation putting up mixed bag of performances
Redshirt sophomore right-handed pitcher Sam Gress still sits at a sub-three ERA with 2.62 with a win-loss record of 7-2. She showed some great pitching in the first two games of the series against Duke, pitching two innings each with zero runs allowed. Against Virginia on March 19, she pitched 4.2 innings and only gave up three hits and two unearned runs after she came in for relief. Gress continues to be a reliable pitcher, but she only pitched around two innings since ACC play started. Her involvement might have to increase in order to hold the offense at bay.
Redshirt sophomore right-handed pitcher Aisha Weixlmann has dropped off lately, allowing 20 runs including 17 earned runs in the past seven games. Her season ERA sits at a 3.08 and she still leads the Pack in strikeouts with 79. However, Weixlmann pitched less than two innings and allowed three earned runs in two different appearances. Weixlmann still consistently strikes out batters, notching nine strikeouts in an 8-2 win over Syracuse on March 4, but her consistency still needs improvement.
That leaves graduate lefty Maddie McPherson, who holds a 5-4 record and a 3.88 ERA. She pitched a few innings against Duke, but pitched almost the entire game against Virginia on March 18, where she gave up four earned runs and three walks. The Pack lost this game 4-1, but otherwise this was not a bad performance. On March 20, however, she allowed five earned runs in less than three innings as the batters had her figured out by then.
Morris and Lambrecht carrying offense
Fifth-year third baseman Logan Morris continues to lead the team in batting average at .432. Since ACC play, she has recorded at least one hit in seven of the Pack’s last nine ACC matchups, including all three Duke games. She is easily the offensive MVP who leads in RBIs, slugging percentage (.802), on-base percentage (.515), hits, has struck out the least and is second in home runs and walks. All of this is to say that, individually, Morris is still dominating at the plate and will have to continue her production if the Pack want to break this losing streak.
Sophomore infielder Kaylee Lambrecht has also been consistently hitting, posting a .352 batting average overall. Although third on the team in RBIs on the season, she has only batted in two runners since ACC play has started. Morris and Lambrecht have plenty to give and lots of batters to bring in except for one big flaw for the Wolfpack.
She gets on base
NC State’s best team batting average in an ACC game was .393 against Syracuse. The Wolfpack won this game and the next game, where the team averaged .250 in batting. All other ACC games have averages much lower than that. Typically, a team would like to have a batting average of .300 or higher. However, posting a .048 in the Pack’s most recent loss 8-1 against Virginia makes it very difficult to bring in runs.
Fortunately, the Pack is very good at getting walks, grabbing 19 walks in the Virginia series alone. However, the impressive pitching in the Pack’s most recent opponents have struck out a lot of batters. Duke alone struck out 38 Wolfpack batters in Durham, giving no chance for an error or mess up by the fielders to occur, or the runner to leg it out.
Looking forward
The Pack went through the tougher ACC teams in this past stretch, and it has shown. The Pack has to improve its batting to get to 40 wins, a goal set by head coach Jennifer Patrick-Swift earlier this year. NC State will likely face these opponents in the playoffs as well, but there is still plenty of time to improve its performance at the plate.
The next ACC series comes in Chapel Hill against UNC. The three-game series begins March 25 at 6 p.m.
