The Lady Buffs dropped three out of four games against the Pioneers from Texas Women’s University this past weekend, but since they pulled out at least one game in the series, they successfully won the regular season conference title and will host the conference tournament. The Lady Buffs will look to win the conference tournament for a chance to host the NCAA Regional Tournament.

The Lady Buffs pitching took a hit this past weekend, giving up 13 runs in the first game and 11 runs in the last. Also, the Lady Buffs bats were quiet in most of game two and game three. Though game two was a slow day for the Lady Buffs, the team won on a walk off grand slam from senior Allie Cranfill, who also set the NCAA Division II record for grand slams with seven.

“I was just trying to make contact,” Cranfill said. “There was one out so I could get a sac fly or something. I just wanted to get contact to score the runner at third. I fouled off like six pitches then I finally got the one and drove it. It was really crazy. Everybody was loud and the team jumped out. It was an awesome feeling.”

The Lady Buffs had a rough two outings in game three and four of the series, losing both games. Though the Lady Buffs didn’t pull out a win in either one of the games, freshman outfielder Ashley Hardin had a career day, hitting four homeruns over the span of the two games. Head coach Kevin Blaskowski said he wasn’t surprised by Hardin’s play at the plate.

“Ashley Hardin’s a great player,” Blaskowski said. “We knew that coming in. We knew she had the capability to be a big time power threat at the plate, and she’s doing an outstanding job at that. She’s playing the position we recruited her to play right now. She’s getting comfortable out there and hopefully looking forward to a big career out there for us. She’s been outstanding this month and I think she’s hit 10 homeruns in the month of April, so she’s doing a great job.”

The Lady Buffs pitching was the weak point of the team this week. The team, who going into the series with TWU had only given up one run in the four games prior to the weekend series, got walloped in the first game of the series, giving up 13 runs. The Lady Buffs gave up 33 runs in total throughout the series. Blaskowski said the team just didn’t play very well.

“We didn’t play very well,” Blaskowski said. “We knew coming into the weekend we had a lot of distractions. We knew we had to pitch well, we had to hit well, and we had to play defense, and the only thing we did well was play defense. We were behind most of the weekend. We went into the seventh inning of every game behind. We didn’t have a lot of quality at bats. The last game we scored a lot of runs, but we didn’t have timely hits, and obviously we didn’t pitch well. I didn’t feel like our pitchers went out and controlled the game at any point, and when that happens you’re not going to be very successful.”

With winning at least one game in the series with TWU, the Lady Buffs will now host the LSC tournament. Blaskowski said he wasn’t worried about making the LSC tournament, but about the Lady Buffs spot in the region.

“I’m not really worried about the LSC tournament,” said Blaskowski. “We don’t start the season to get to the LSC tournament. Our goal is to get to the NCAA postseason and host the NCAA postseason. Contrary to popular belief, hosting the LSC tournament was not our goal this weekend. We wanted to win so we could hold the top spot in our region. That’s my major concern. We’re going to have to win this tournament to host the postseason all the way through. We know what we have to do. Now it’s just a matter of some of these kids dialing in on their priorities and keep softball where it matters right now and make sure we’re better this weekend.”

Blaskowski also expanded on the problem of pitching, saying that the players know they have to get better.

“Well, I checked the waiver wire this morning, there wasn’t anyone available, so we’re going to go with what we have,” Blaskowski said. “Honestly though, our pitchers know they have to get better. They didn’t throw the ball very well this weekend, and that’s going to kind of be our challenge. We’ve kind of pitched by committee all year long to keep everybody fresh, but we threw like we had tired arms this weekend. I’m not quite sure what our mindset will be, but I know we’re going to be working on that over the next three to four days.”

The Lady Buffs are still currently ranked first in the regional rankings, but that could be in jeopardy after this past weekend. They now have the same regional record as St. Mary’s (TX) who is also going into their conference tournament this weekend. Blaskowski said he was concerned about potentially falling out of the first place in the regional ranking.

“I’m always concerned about that,” Blaskowski said. “Our goal is to win every game. I had somebody tell me yesterday that those games didn’t matter. Well, those games matter. Every time we take the field it matters. We’re trying to be one of the best teams in the country and when you’re playing at that level, you have to go out with the mindset that you have to win every game.”

The Lady Buffs will host the LSC tournament on May 1-2. They will play the winner of Cameron and San Angelo in the semi-finals.