When the Penn softball team travels to Delaware for a doubleheader tomorrow, coach Leslie King will be banking on none of her players getting hurt.
No coach wants injuries, but the Quakers are in a particularly precarious situation. At full strength, King's squad consists of 14 players. But tomorrow, two women have midterm exams and will not make the trip south. And freshman Hilary Sheridan is still out with mononucleosis.
That leaves King with exactly 11 athletes available to play in two games. Including a designated hitter, 10 players start a typical softball game.
On top of exam setbacks, the Quakers were unable to practice yesterday due to NCAA rules specifying the number of consecutive days that a team may practice.
"We'll have to do a quick chalkboard session before we leave on [today]," King said.
The Quakers - who split the opener against the Lafayette Leopards - have some kinks to work out before they face the Blue Hens, a team that King called a "yardstick" for her players.
"It's always been a pretty close game with them," King said. "[This year] Delaware will be somewhat of an unknown force. They have new pitchers on their staff, and that's going to be something we need to adjust to."
The Quakers swept last year's doubleheader, barely, winning 6-4 in the opener and 5-4 in the nightcap. But the previous two years belonged to the Blue Hens, who won all four games by a combined score of 26-12.
The Blue Hens (2-3) entered their season ranked seventh out of eight teams in the Colonial Athletic league. Their first two wins included a shutout by sophomore Samantha Shawn, a rising star pitcher with a 2.21 ERA, but it was downhill from there. They have lost three in a row, and had to give up a game 0-10 against East Carolina in five innings due to the 10-run rule.
Coming into tomorrow's contests, Penn is particularly concerned about the holes in its defense that Lafayette exposed this weekend.
"The one time that we had to run a cutoff play, we didn't execute that properly," King admitted.
Tomorrow's pitching rotation has yet to be finalized, but junior left-hand pitcher Emily Denstedt will likely start the first, and freshman Jessie Lupardus will go in for game two.
"Lupardus pitched an outstanding game" against Lafayette, King said.
Lupardus finished the first game and then threw a complete game in the second, striking out a total of 12 in seven innings.
Tomorrow, neither can afford to get rocked, since King won't have much help in the bullpen. And both will need some more support from the Quakers' offense.
Though there were key hits - including Christina Khosravi's walkoff single in the 11th inning of game one - the Red and Blue managed only two hits in the second game, which was shortened to five innings due to darkness.
"We will definitely try to work on our hitting against Delaware," said King.
