ND SOFTBALL: Irish head into Big East
By JOE HETTLER
Assistant Sports Editor
Notre Dame softball coach Deanna Gumpf believes that the softball season is divided into three parts.
In the first part of their season, Notre Dame's softball team battled through a tough early schedule to an 8-12 record.
The team now heads into the second part of their schedule tonight against Western Michigan looking to improve and take control of the Big East.
"I definitely think the season is divided into three sections: our preseason, our Big East season and the post-season," said Gumpf. "Right now, we have gone through the first part and said `OK, where do we need to get better? We need to not walk as many batters and we need to hit the ball.' That pretty much sums it up."
The Irish have relied on young pitching throughout the season, particularly from freshman Steffany Stenglein and Carrie Wisen.
"Stef has improved and improved and improved," said Gumpf. "She's gotten better every day that she's been out there. Both the freshman jumped right into the fire and I think it took them both a couple of games just to figure it all out. They needed it. It was great for both of those girls to play the best teams in the country because now they know what it takes and that's a tough to figure out."
So far this season, Stenglein has a 7-8 record with a 2.52 ERA and has struck out 81 batters. She also leads the teams in games pitched with 19.
The Irish offense has been led by unanimous preseason All-Big East selection, Andrea Loman who is hitting a team-leading .327 batting average as well as a .422 on-base percentage. Freshman outfielder Megan Ciolli is second on the team with a .308 average and leads the team with three round trippers.
According to Gumpf, the older players have a major influence on the younger players and have helped them adjust to college softball.
"Jenny [Kriech] and Jarrah [Meyers] are returning All-Americans so their leadership is pretty much on the field," Gumpf said. "They're there to play ball, and they lead by example. Kas [Hoag] is a great leader because she's the one the girls can go to at any time. She's there for everybody on the team and she's got a lot of heart."
The team hopes to correct its early-season problems and put together a string of victories before Big East play opens Saturday against Pittsburgh.
"I think that we're hitting better than we have in the past," Gumpf said."I think that if we hit the ball, we'll win. The pitchers know what they need to do. We had a lot of walks early in the season, pitching around a lot of hitters, and now we can go right at them."
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, March 26, 2002
