The Ohio State Softball team huddles up before the Ohio State-Michigan game April 9, 2021. Ohio State lost 7-0. Credit: Christian Harsa | Special Projects Director
Coming off an undefeated weekend to start the season, the Buckeyes will return to Leesburg, Florida, to play five games in a three day span.
Ohio State (3-0) will play a doubleheader Friday against Butler (4-2) and South Alabama (1-4). The Buckeyes will pick back up again Saturday with another doubleheader against Liberty (0-5) and Stetson (4-2) before finishing the weekend against North Carolina (4-1) Sunday.
The Buckeyes defeated Northern Illinois, Bethune-Cookman and Louisville Friday and Saturday. Senior infielder Niki Carver, who didn’t participate in the fall due to injury, drove in five runs over the weekend.
“It’s always good to be back out. I missed a lot of the fall due to injury, and because of school on top of it, so it was one of those things, ” Carver said. “This was the first opportunity to play with the team against someone else other than ourselves, so I just went out there and had fun, and so did everyone else.”
Carver’s success continued throughout the weekend, batting .500 during the three games and hitting her first home run of the season and 18th of her career. The senior said she was happy with her performance and wants to keep the momentum going into this weekend.
Each of Ohio State’s three opponents saw different starting pitchers. Graduate Lexie Handley and sophomores Allison Smith and Emily Ruck only gave up eight runs in total, and each of them earned a win.
“I was really excited to use three different starters. That’s something that we haven’t been able to do a whole lot in the past,” head coach Kelly Kovach Schoenly said. “It was really nice to see all three of them have a quality start. Lexie was able to tip in a little bit when she didn’t start, which was nice.”
Handley shouldered the majority of the load in the three games during her Ohio State debut, shining the most in her complete game against Northern Illinois, striking out 10 and allowing just three hits. She finished the weekend with a 0.68 ERA in 10 1/3 innings pitched.
Schoenly said she was happy with the way her pitching staff performed, however her satisfaction wasn’t just limited to those in the circle — it extended to the totality of her offense, too.
“I think any time you’re scoring seven, eight, nine runs a game, you’re giving yourself a good opportunity to win,” Schoenly said. “The offense was active and throughout the innings of every game, didn’t sit too much on the lead either, which was nice. Seeing a lot of different players up and down the lineup have an impact on the game was very exciting to see.”
Schoenly and junior catcher Sam Hackenbracht both agreed that there was a collective team investment and a lot of positive energy all around.
“I think we all had a lot of energy and were really excited to be there, so that made it a lot easier to play well,” Hackenbracht said. “We were all really aggressive and played together, so that definitely contributed to our three wins.”
Schoenly said that in order to keep the momentum going, the team is only focusing on one game at a time. Hackenbracht said they do not want to let up after this weekend and want to keep working toward their goals.
“It can be hard to practice after you have three wins because some people get complacent, so we just have to keep in mind that we haven’t arrived,” Hackenbracht said. “We want to be ranked in the top 25, so that is what we are going to continue to push and be our best for.”
In their all-time series, the Buckeyes have winning records against Butler, Liberty and Stetson, and lost the only game they played against South Alabama. However, they have the most history with North Carolina, playing the Tar Heels a total of 11 times, most recently in the 2019 NCAA Tournament.
The first pitch between Ohio State and Butler will be thrown Friday at 11 a.m. All games will be streamed on FloSoftball.com.
