Virginia softball plays its last regular season ACC series this weekend, but the team is not feeling nostalgic just yet. Instead of seeing this week's trip to N.C. State as an end, the Cavaliers view it as a chance for a fresh start.
"It's like a new season as we now start to prepare for the ACC Tournament," assistant coach Heidi Freitager said. "This becomes more or a less a third preseason, where we had the fall season, and then the early part of January and February, and now we have a whole new season starting ... Now we just have to turn it around."
Virginia hopes its "third preseason" will be more like their first two, during which the Cavaliers beat three ranked opponents, than its play during the last two months. This year the Cavaliers (21-27,4-12 ACC) have suffered through injuries and inconsistency while posting a sub-.500 record. The team enters the weekend as losers of four straight games and currently finds itself stuck at the very bottom of the ACC standings.
N.C. State (24-21, 5-11 ACC), however, sits just one game ahead of the Cavaliers in the conference and is well within Virginia's striking distance. As the conference tournament lurks around the corner, a last-second bump in the standings would pay dividends for the team.
"We want to get some momentum going into the ACC Tournament," junior infielder Kennedy Byxbee said. "It's really important for us to win two games this weekend so that we can put ourselves in a better position within the bracket of the tournament and give us a better opportunity to move through the tournament."
A well-rounded Wolfpack team stands in Virginia's way this weekend.
N.C. State's offense does not feature one star, but instead relies on six batters with 30 or more hits, four batters with 20 or more RBIs and nine batters with 10 or more runs scored. The team even rotates between 18 players which have played double-digit games this season, and such versatility makes the Wolfpack difficult to scout, as opponents cannot predict who they will attack on any given night.
"I think the biggest challenge is that they are such a mixed bag of talent," Freitager said. "You have speed here and there, you have power here and there, and you have players coming in and out. So you have to prepare for a lot of different scenarios to happen because they're always going to be throwing something different at you."
Virginia's offense has been stagnant during its four-game losing streak, putting up a combined three runs during that span, but will look to get back on track against the ACC's statistically third-worst pitching staff. The Wolfpack enter the weekend with a team ERA of 3.36, which is sixth in the conference, but also still more than a run better than Virginia's 4.69 mark - the worst in the ACC.
Unlike its offense, N.C. State's pitching staff has a definitive leader, as freshman Kayla Cox has thrown more than half of the team's innings so far this year. The freshman is tops on the team with a 3.09 ERA, and more impressively, she is fourth in the ACC with 206 strikeouts - 11 behind Virginia sophomore ace Melanie Mitchell. The hurler's penchant for punch-outs will force the Cavalier batters to be extra careful at the plate and may in turn help them get past their recent struggles.
"Its definitely important to get the offense back in the groove," Freitager said. "It's going be a matter of getting the ball in play especially against Cox because she has a bunch of strikeouts. So we may need to simplify our approach, and hopefully that will get the bats going again."
And as the end of this tumultuous, up-and-down regular season nears, the Cavaliers are paying no heed to what has transpired thus far, only what lies ahead.
"We're just going to go in there and give it our all," Byxbee said. "We have nothing to lose and nothing else that happened [this season] matters. We're just going to stick to us, play our game, and hopefully end on a high note going into the ACC Tournament"
Read More
No. 4 field hockey set for primetime ACC showdown at undefeated No. 2 North Carolina
By Eleanor Lynch | 1 hours agoWith a win, the Cavaliers would take control of first place in the ACC.
Virginia volleyball defeats Syracuse in a thrilling five-set match
By Victoria Blankenship | 9 hours agoThe Cavaliers continue their best ACC run since 2006.
TILOCK AND ISTVAN: We should temper post-Bennett expectations for Virginia men’s basketball
By Xander Tilock and Ben Istvan | 11 hours agoBennett buoyed Virginia in a way that legendary coaches of other programs did not.
