Heading into the homestretch of the season, the Virginia softball team will take a break from conference play with a midweek doubleheader against Liberty Wednesday in Lynchburg.
Virginia (12-27, 4-8 ACC) returns to play fresh from being swept by Virginia Tech in Blacksburg during the weekend?. In that series, the Cavaliers faced off against senior righthander Angela Tincher,? who held the Cavaliers to two hits and no runs over 17 and two-thirds innings during the three games.
"She is of course one of the best pitchers in the country and you can't get frustrated," freshman Allee Rife said, adding, "We have to get past that now and focus on Liberty."
Virginia managed only one run during the weekend and will use the two games against Liberty to tune up its offense.
"After facing Tincher we need to kind of scale back down a little bit because she threw hard had a lot of movement," coach Eileen Schmidt said. "So we need to get our timing back, which is what we're working on."
Before the series with Virginia Tech, the Cavaliers won their second ACC series of the season against N.C. State.
"It's hard because we were on a little bit of a roll and, again, we ran into a buzzsaw," Schmidt said. "So now ... we go into Liberty on Wednesdayand we just need to get ourselves back on a roll."
As a first-year coach for Virginia, Schmidt has never faced Liberty (7-23-1) before. She said she plans to "treat them like a Radford or a JMU -- real scrappy, swing big bats, take big cuts."
Liberty's offense does not quite match up with JMU and Radford. Only one player on the squad, junior Beth Bennett, is batting above .300, and six of the regular Flames players are batting below .200.
Despite its offensive struggles, Liberty has shown impressive pitching throughout the season, posting a team ERA of just 2.28.
Sophomore lefthander Dana Wheeler is averaging more than a strikeout per inning and has allowed only three walks in 76 innings pitched. But with an offense that has scored only 56 runs all season, an average of just under two runs per game, Wheeler has only four wins.
Though Virginia intends to improve its offensive performance this weekend, it hopes to recreate last weekend's strong defensive showing.
"We played great defensively," Schmidt said. "We really did. We had some really great plays and got ourselves out of some jams this weekend so [we need to] continue that."
A strong performance both offensively and defensively against Liberty is particularly important to Virginia, as the Cavaliers return home this weekend to face North Carolina, which sits in first place in the ACC standings.
The Tar Heels do not make many mistakes, Schmidt said, noting, "we just need to get ourselves back into the right frame of mind on Wednesday and then head into the weekend."
Despite the challenges, Rife is confident in her team's ability to perform in the upcoming games.
"We just need to play how we know we can play," she said.
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