The Ohio State softball team huddles during the Ohio State-Michigan game on April 9. Ohio State lost 7-0. Credit: Christian Harsa | Asst. Photo Editor
Back on the road, the Buckeyes will look to change their fortune in their latest trip to Indiana, but with this weekend’s focus on Purdue.
After back-to-back series losses, Ohio State rebounded well by taking three of four versus Rutgers last weekend. The Buckeyes took three wins in convincing fashion before a seventh-inning score pushed the Scarlet Knights toward a victory.
Now 17-14 and in fifth place in the Big Ten Conference, Ohio State looks toward Purdue, a team that has won three of its last eight games. The Boilermakers are 10-22 this season, sitting 12th in the standings, and will welcome the Buckeyes to West Lafayette, Indiana, for the first time since 2012.
“I think it’s going to be a challenging weekend for us,” associate head coach Jen McIntyre said. “We give Purdue a lot of credit. I think that whether a team is at the top or the bottom or the middle of the standings right now, playing any team four times is tough. By the time that you get to really the end of Game 2 and Game 3, you kind of know everything about them and everything they’re going to throw at you.”
Purdue split the four games at Michigan State last weekend, a series in which all ballgames were decided by less than three runs. In the circle, the Boilermakers pitching staff has collectively thrown to a 3.99-team earned-run average, second-highest in the conference.
Four different pitchers have started at least seven games for Purdue, and freshman left-hander Savanah Henley leads the team in several major categories. Henley’s 61 2/3 innings pitched, 54 strikeouts and .245 opponent batting average are best on the Boilermakers.
At the plate, Purdue’s offense stacks up a bit higher among Big Ten programs. The Boilermakers offense has hit .256 this season, finding the gaps for 46 doubles, third most in the conference. Junior infielder Rachel Becker has dominated most opposing pitching this season, and currently leads the Big Ten with a .483 batting average while the only hitter with more than 50 hits.
“Clearly, Rachel Becker is having a tremendous year,” McIntyre said. “We’re going to have to work really hard on the mound to kind of keep their hitters off balance and fielding everything clean. That’s our mission this weekend.”
Although offering the duo of senior right-hander Payton Buresch and freshman righty Allison Smith, the latter of whom became the seventh Buckeyes freshman to reach 100 strikeouts in a season, it was junior right-hander Jessica Ross who stole the show last weekend.
Ross made her season’s second start in Game 2 Friday and held Rutgers to just two hits and one run across five innings. McIntyre said Ross’ outing was incredible to see and a result of the work she’d put in during practice.
“It was phenomenal,” McIntyre said. “She’s been in practice a little bit spinning pitches and kind of keeping our own hitters off balance and really earned that opportunity. She got in there and she just took advantage of it.”
Sophomore catcher Sam Hackenbracht built on her impressive campaign with an even more impressive weekend. Hackenbracht reached base in 13 of her 15 plate appearances over the four games, and Rutgers intentionally walked the right-handed slugger five times.
Hackenbracht’s performance was enough to garner her second Big Ten Softball Player of the Week honor, completing the series by scoring nine runs, driving in five more and connecting with three home runs to tie Minnesota’s Natalie DenHartog for the most in the Big Ten.
“We always say intentionally walking a batter is the ultimate sign of respect. She just has been on fire,” McIntyre said. “She has incredibly fast hands, and just has the ability, simplistic as it might sound, her hand-eye coordination is unreal. She just is so forceful to get down to the spot that that’s what makes the ball fly. She loves to play the game, she loves to learn and she just loves to compete, and that’s what’s really fun about her.”
Deadlocked at 21-21, the 43rd all-time game between Ohio State and Purdue will begin Friday with first pitch set for 4 p.m., airing on BTN+.
