Duke vs #4 Texas

Duke
Record: 10-2
ERA: 1.80
Batting Avg: 0.333
Pitching:

Biele: 1-0, 0.00
Butler: 2-1, 1.34
Walters: 4-0, 1.97
St. George: 3-1, 2.10​

Hitting:

Jacobsen (36): 0.361
Crabtree (34): 0.471
Tapia (34): 0.324​

Fielding: 0.970

Texas
Record: 13-0
ERA: 0.83
Batting Avg: 0.429
Pitching:

Elish: 6-0, 0.45
O'Leary: 2-0, 0.75
Day: 3-0, 0.00
Adams: 2-0, 1.50​

Hitting:

Jefferson (32): 0.500
Hathaway (32): 0.281
Rhodes (32): 0.469​

Fielding: 0.961

 

Well. That sucked.

 

Plenty of chances, nothing clutch.

Lot of hard hit balls, right at someone.

 

I think the previous game zapped their energy. I was afraid a game like this was coming. It happens. Just look at the top 15 and some of the teams they have lost too. It coulda been worse. Duke is a pretty good team.

 

All players, IF and OF had speed. Small bobbles by IF were made up by their speed. Bloopers that typically drop for us were caught by their OF. Their pitcher confused our batters. They were just the better team that night.

 

Sad... Can't win them all, but Duke looked meh earlier in the tourney and shouldn't have been a problem if we were good enough to beat OU. Losing isn't the problem, because sometimes its just not your day in softball and baseball, but to get shut out by Duke does not bode well for facing elite pitching OU will throw at us. Losing 5-4 or something would have at least shown we have a chance against OU pitching.

 

The Duke loss on it's own does not raise any red flags. But what I'm looking for
is improvement from last year in the infield, defensively, and better hitting with
runners in scoring position (against quality opponents). i don't see either yet,
and it could really bite us on the upcoming west coast road trip. Giving good teams four outs and leaving valuable base runners stranded is the formula for a loss.
We need to get better quickly.