Having lost back-to-back series for the first time this season, Ohio State has a chance to trend back in the right direction with a four-game weekend series against Rutgers at Buckeye Field.
Ohio State softball head coach Kelly Kovach Schoenly said before the weekend that she expected Indiana senior right-handed pitcher Emily Goodin to be the Hoosiers’ workhorse — and that was the case as the righty tossed three complete-game victories.
The midway point of the Big Ten softball season has come, and the Buckeyes have a favorable outlook to rise from their current sitting in the middle of the conference standings.
While she trotted around the base paths with an extra pep in her step, Hackenbracht had a mission: Get back to the dugout bench so she could lie down.
Ohio State (13-10) lost three of four to Michigan (16-4) as both Wolverines starting pitchers in senior left-hander Meghan Beaubien and junior righty Alex Storako tossed two complete games.
The rivalry will renew this weekend at Buckeye Field, and much is on the line between two teams entering on long winning streaks and near the top of the standings in the Big Ten Conference.
The beat continued on as the Buckeyes’ bats powered their way to a three-game sweep over Easter weekend, extending their winning streak to five games.
Riding momentum after winning three of four at Buckeye Field, the Buckeyes softball team will have a chance to continue its hot hitting during its first true-Big Ten road series weekend.
Entering Ohio State on the heels of back-to-back first team All-Ohio recognitions in high school and an Ohio Capital Conference Player of the Year, McMenemy said she had always wanted to represent her city and state in front of her friends on the softball field just down the road from where she grew up.
The second-year Buckeye was a terror on the basepaths and a threat at the plate as Ohio State wrapped its second and final weekend in Leesburg, Florida, with a series win over Wisconsin but dropped two to Northwestern.