The Lady Buffs swept a four game series this past weekend, April 3 and 4, against the Javelinas from TAMUK. The sweep extends the Lady Buffs dominance in the Lone Star Conference with their record being 17-3 in conference. Second place in conference is Texas Women’s University, who hold a conference record of 9-6-1. The sweep also allowed the Lady Buffs to stay still at their number two national ranking, improving their record to 33-6 on the season and extending a nine game winning streak.
The story of the four game series was how hot the Lady Buffs’ bats were. The Lady Buffs scored a combined 53 points for the four games series, powered by 13 homeruns. 10 of those home runs came in the two games on April 4 alone. Head coach Kevin Blaskowski praised the team’s offensive consistency, which is currently the second best offense in the nation.
“Going into the weekend we talked about trying to get our offense back on track and developing some offensive consistency,” Blaskowski said. “Falling behind creates a little bit more of a challenge. I thought our offense responded up and down the lineup. I think the changes with Stacey (Ramirez) and Brittany (Gehle) at the top created a lot of offense in front of Renee (Erwin) and Kaisha (Dacosin) and Lacey (Taylor) and the job they’re doing just opens it up for the bottom of the lineup to go up there relaxed and hit.”
The Lady Buffs are also coming off of a week where they had six games in one week, with two of those games on Tuesday. The Lady Buffs finally get a week off before heading to play the eighth placed Eastern New Mexico Zias this weekend.
“Now it’s an opportunity after eight games, or 10 games in 11 days, now we get a little break and we probably need it,” Blaskowski said. “We’re going on the road this weekend and in light of the injuries we have, we need to make some lineup changes.”
Junior catcher Lacey Taylor also echoed the sentiment of Blaskowski when it came to finally getting some much earned time off.
“I think it’s going to be huge for us. We had two very tough midweek games against LCU the past two weeks and those were physically exhausting. These few days are going to be crucial for me getting my legs back under me and everyone will appreciate that when we go out again Eastern this weekend,” Taylor said.
Taylor also complemented her pitchers who she says she’s seen much more depth with instead of just having those few stars at the top of the rotation.
“I think the big thing is that all four pitchers have stepped up. We don’t just have two stars, or one star on the team. We just have four deep. I don’t think any team wants to get to our bullpen because they’re just as good as our starters and they can come in and shut any team down at any point and I think it’s helped us out all a lot lately.”
The Lady Buffs now go on to take on the last place Zias from Eastern New Mexico. The Zias are the Lady Buffs greatest rivals, and the games always seem to be intense no matter where the two teams stand in the conference.
“Obviously it’s not a straight up contact sport like football, but there is a little bit (of animosity) and I’ll just leave it at that,” Taylor said. “We do take a lot of stuff from other teams, and we take a lot of things seriously, and we just want to win and try to win every single game.”
If the Lady Buffs win out, they will most likely host the Lonestar Conference tournament and NCAA regional tournament in May.
