The Virginia softball team will be heating it up when facing the Flames of Liberty in a doubleheader today.
During the weekend, Virginia Tech swept the Cavaliers, starting on Friday with a 4-0 score, ending Virginia's three-game winning streak. Despite the losses, Virginia put forth a solid effort against the Hokies.
"We battled really hard, and we had some good at bats against a really good pitcher," Virginia coach Karen Johns said.
The Hokies continued to shut down Virginia's offense Saturday when Virginia Tech won both sides of the doubleheader: 2-1 and 10-0 in six innings.
"I think we played some solid games," junior Whitney Holstun said."We had good defense, we hit the ball and our pitchers did well. I'm not sure what happened in the final game on Saturday. We didn't have the mental preparedness for the close loss. Obviously we would've liked to win one of the games, but that didn't happen."
The weekend series against Virginia Tech left the Cavaliers with a 14-27 overall record and 1-11 mark in the Atlantic Coast Conference.The Hokies improved to 32-12 overall and 9-3 in the ACC.
Also playing during the weekend, Liberty split a doubleheader against Winthrop Friday with an 11-12 loss followed by a 7-2 win. The Lady Flames took game three of the series on Saturday to win two of three. Liberty now stands at 24-16 overall and 2-1 in the Mid-Eastern Atlantic Conference.
The Cavaliers will be faced with the challenge of shutting two of the premier offensive players in the MEAC: seniors Dawn Jeffs and Jessica Moore. The two leaders of the Flames have both started all 40 games for Liberty this year and have tallied 270 hits combined. Jeffs, who plays second base, has a .438 batting average while outfielder and shortshop Moore sports a .403 average. As a team, the Flames have outscored their opponents 189-149.
"They're very talented," Johns said. "They have some big wins against some ranked teams.They have a really strong senior class.It's going to be a tough battle for us."
The Cavaliers played the Lady Flames in the 2006 season when two teams split a doubleheader, Liberty winning 5-2 and Virginia winning 13-3. This year, however, both teams are in need of extra wins, and Virginia may have to put in a little extra effort to avoid an upset from Liberty.
"The way our season is going, we can't look past anyone," Holstun said."The main priority for us is Liberty.We should be able to win those games, but we can't look past anyone at this point."
After the series against Liberty, the Cavaliers will travel to Raleigh to face conference foe N.C. State. The Wolfpack took three of four from Virginia last year, and is now 27-16 (7-5 ACC) on the season.
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