Only 15 games into its season, the Penn softball team already faces a must-win game if it hopes to preserve its chances of finishing with a winning overall record. For the streaky Quakers (4-11), this scenario is very familiar.
Last year, after losing eight straight games about midway through the season, the Quakers responded with a dominant 7-0 victory over Villanova that allowed them to regain their confidence and finish strongly with an 8-4 record in their final 12 games.
Against Monmouth (6-3) tomorrow, the Red and Blue hope that a critical victory over the Hawks in one of their last tune-ups before Ivy League play will help the team rebound from a recent skid in which it has lost seven of its last eight contests.
The Quakers will have their work cut out for them. The Hawks' lineup features several high-powered hitters that will test the Quakers' pitching rotation throughout the day.
Sophomore catcher Emily DeLong enters with three home runs in the past four games and freshman outfielder Chelsea Paprocki is riding a four-game hitting streak.
Following two disappointing losses in a doubleheader to Saint Joseph's Wednesday in which the Quakers were only able to muster a single run, they will need stronger hitting performances, especially from sophomore catcher Alisha Prystowsky.
Last season, Prystowsky set Penn freshman records for hits (44), runs (29) and runs batted in (28). She leads the Quakers with nine runs this season, and registered two hits and scored the team's only run against St. Joe's.
In its upcoming showdown with Monmouth, the Quakers hope to eliminate problems with their overall focus and consistency, something that certainly lacked in the loss to the Philadelphia-based Hawks.
Despite staying competitive for the majority of play against St. Joe's, both games were marked by one major inning in which the Hawks put up crooked numbers on the scoreboard and tallied the majority of their runs. In both games it was the fifth inning. In the first game St. Joe's scored two of its four runs. In the second game it scored four runs to add to their 3-0 lead.
"We need to concentrate better on each inning," junior outfielder Keiko Uraguchi said following the second game. "We need to think inning-by-inning instead of game-by-game."
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