BETHANY, W.Va. – After rolling through the regular season with a 29-11 overall record and an 11-3 conference mark, the Bethany College softball team earned the #1 seed and hosting right for the 2010 Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC) Softball Tournament.
The four-team double-elimination tournament will begin Friday, May 7 and conclude on Saturday, May 8. The winner of the tournament will earn the PAC’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, which is scheduled to begin later next week.
The opening game of the tournament will pit the top-seeded Bison against the #4 seed Thiel (19-17, 8-6) at 11 a.m. Friday. That will be followed by second-seeded Thomas More (19-17, 11-3) squaring off with #3 Westminster (24-14, 10-4) at 1 p.m. The championship game will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, with a if necessary game scheduled at 3 p.m.
This marks the seventh time in the 11-year history of the PAC Tournament that Bethany has hosted, although it’s the first time the tourney has been at BC since 2005. The Bison won the league crown the first five years of the tournament before Westminster knocked them off for the ’05 title. Overall, Bethany has won six PAC Tournament championships, with the most recent coming in 2008, while Thomas More took first place in 2007 and 2009 and Westminster laid claim to the 2005 crown. Washington & Jefferson also has one championship to their credit, which came in 2006.
Bethany is the hottest team coming into this year’s tournament, as they have won seven in a row and 15 of their last 16 outings. Of BC’s last seven victories, five came against teams they could see this weekend, as they split a twinbill at Westminster April 22, losing 1-0 before scoring a 4-1 win in the nightcap. Then in the final week of the regular season, the Bison swept doubleheaders at Thomas More (7-0, 8-1) and Thiel (8-2, 5-4) before taking two from Washington & Jefferson (3-1, 7-1) to clinch the top seed. The second win over W&J was also the 600th in the illustrious career of long-time head coach Jan Forsty, making her just the 15th Division III coach to reach that milestone.
Pacing the way for Bethany has been a balanced offensive attack that features strong hitters throughout the line-up. The Green and White lead the PAC this year by hitting .331 and scored 6.3 runs per game, more than half a run more than any other team. Freshman RF Maria Vallone (Rochester, N.Y./Webster Schroeder) enjoyed a monster first year, leading the conference with 57 hits and the team with a .483 average while also clubbing 11 doubles and driving in 24 runs.
Other big hitters included junior 3B Andrea Thomas (Toronto, Ohio), who hit .354 with three homers and 32 RBIs, senior catcher Bridgette Fauth (Pittsburgh, Pa./Carrick), who totaled four home runs and 27 RBIs to go along with a .321 average, and senior SS Ashley Marinacci (Belliare, Ohio/Bellaire St. John’s), who posted team-highs of four home runs, 11 doubles and 36 RBIs.
BC’s pitching, which finished second in the league with a 2.51 ERA, features two right-handers who both earned double-digit victories this spring. Freshman Emily Jump (Milford, Del./Polytech), who was just named PAC Pitcher of the Week after going 4-0 last week, joins Vallone as a first-year player with a huge season. Her 19-8 record is the most wins by a Bison since Romney Waters went 22-5 in 2004 and her 1.97 ERA is second in the conference. She teams with junior Cortney Newland (Carmichaels, Pa.), who was 10-3 this year and had complete game wins over Thomas More and W&J during the final week, to give Bethany a strong staff.
Behind the Bison pitchers is a stellar defense that committed the fewest errors in the circuit (38) on their way to a PAC-best .967 fielding percentage. The right-side of the infield was particularly strong for the Green and White, as junior 2B Chelsea Butler (Cortland, Ohio/Lakeview) and senior 1B Stephanie Shafer (Lancaster, Ohio) recorded fielding percentages of .977 and .989, respectively.
The defending champion and #2 seed Thomas More Saints lost three out of their final four league games after starting out the campaign 10-0 in the PAC. Their line-up, which was second to Bethany in scoring per game (5.6), features the conference’s top power threat and stolen base leader. Sophomore 1B Brittany Wegman paced the league with a .484 batting average, eight home runs and 40 runs scored while collecting 31 RBIs. At the top of the line-up is OF Stephanie Stadtmiller, who batted .346 and was a perfect 31-for-31 in stolen base attempts.
Thomas More’s pitching is led by Dana Bors, who finished with an 11-7 record and 1.67 ERA with 97 strikeouts in 109 innings. The Saints went 3-3 this year against the other teams in the tournament this weekend, with two losses against Bethany and a split against Westminster (0-1, 11-3) countered by a sweep over Thiel (3-0, 9-4) back on April 6.
Westminster’s key to this season has been strong pitching, evidenced by a league-low 2.27 ERA and 244 hits allowed in over 240 innings of work. Junior Lis Shulz is the ace with an 11-2 record, a microscopic 1.08 ERA and two impressive shutouts over Bethany, a seven-hit blanking in a 1-0 win April 22, and Thomas More, a four-hit shutout in another 1-0 decision May 1.
The Titans also have potent sticks to compliment their stingy pitching, as they recorded a .309 team batting average, second behind only Bethany. Freshman SS Katie Hughes hit .398 for the year with three home runs and 27 RBIs and junior C/SS Ashley Beltz scored a team-leading 30 runs while batting .390 and knocking in 22. Westminster also has one of the top sluggers in their program’s history, as 1B Jennifer Emery hit four home runs and drove in 36 this year, which set a new single-season record and also gave her the Titan career RBI mark.
While Bethany, Thomas More and Westminster have been regular qualifiers for the PAC Tournament, Thiel will be making their first appearance at the conference playoffs since 2005. The Tomcats, who will close out the regular season Wednesday with a non-conference twinbill against Ursuline, punched their ticket to the Tournament with two wins over Grove City Saturday. Thiel had a 1-5 record against the other tournament qualifiers, splitting with Westminster (4-3, 1-2) on April 1 and losing both games to Thomas More and Bethany.
The Tomcats have a pair of solid pitchers in Kristen Moreland, who was 9-5 with 51 Ks, and Emily Batiz, who finished 7-7 and whiffed 77 batters in 84+ innings. Their top hitter was OF/C Melissa Rankin, who placed third in the conference with a .406 average and she clubbed a PAC-high 15 doubles. Batiz helped her own cause at the plate by hitting .323 and driving in a team-best 23 RBIs, while 3B Stephanie Smith finished second on the Tomcats with 17 runs scored and drove home 15.
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