Photo by Shelagh Laverty/The Daily Campus
The UConn softball team is set for a second weekend of action this season, this time they are heading down to Raleigh, North Carolina for the NC State Tournament.
The Huskies will open on Friday, Feb. 16 for a double header against Elon and Campbell. Game one against Elon starts at 12:00 p.m., and first pitch for game two against Campbell is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.. UConn will continue the tournament on Saturday, Feb. 17 for another double header against the host school of NC State and Campbell. Their day starts at 2:20 p.m. against the NC State Wolfpack and will close with another matchup against Campbell at 7:30 p.m. Then the Huskies will wrap up the tournament on Sunday, Feb. 18 for a single matchup against North Dakota State with first pitch scheduled for 9:30 a.m.
Elon is coming into this matchup with a 3-1 overall record. On opening weekend, they hosted a tournament of their own at Hunt Softball Park. They won both games against Kent State, they lost against Miami (Ohio) and they defeated Evansville before their Sunday afternoon matchup got canceled against Appalachian State. The Phoenix’s game against Evansville ended in a thriller. Junior Allie Seering stepped up to the plate down a run and a runner in scoring position. She came in clutch and hit a homerun over the fence to give Elon their first walk-off victory of the season with a final score of 5-4.
Campbell is entering this tournament with a 0-5 record. The Fighting Camels have yet to put all the pieces together to get in the win column this season. Campbell almost had a late rally comeback against Buckenell on Saturday of the Kickin’ Chicken Classic in Conway, South Carolina. They struggled offensively until the seventh inning, when junior Tristin Doster hit a two run RBI, scoring junior Alyssa Henault and sophomore MaKayla McClain. Then freshman Lindsay Lumsden hit an RBI single which advanced Doster and brought home sophomore Stacey Deputy. However, the game ended on a fly out with two runners stranded on base, resulting in Campbell coming up short 4-3, once again.
NC State has had a little bit of a better start to the season with a 2-3 overall record. The Wolfpack did not find any luck against Iowa, Missouri or Western Kentucky but they found wins against Missouri State and St. John’s. They finished off the first weekend of the season at the NFCA Leadoff Classic with a 9-1 win over St. John’s. Sophomore right-handed pitcher Madison Inscoe threw a career-high nine strikeouts while in the circle for seven innings. Inscoe struck out six consecutive batters between the third and fifth innings. The offense backed up the strong pitching performance by scoring nine runs in the Wolfpack’s last game of the opening weekend.
The last team the Huskies will be facing this weekend is North Dakota State. The Bison are coming in with a 3-4 overall record. They have played the most games out of all the teams who UConn will play in the NC State Tournament this upcoming weekend with seven total, while the others have only played four or five games. North Dakota State had two mid-week matchups between East Carolina and No. 10 Duke, they dropped both games. Before this, they had won their last three games of their opening weekend at the UNC Wilmington Tournament against Northern Kentucky, DePaul and the host, UNC Wilmington. Despite their two most recent losses, the Bison have overall played a pretty balanced game thus far this season.
UConn had two solid wins over Georgia State and UCF at the Black and Gold Classic in Orlando, Florida this past weekend. Jana Sanden was an offensive weapon for the Huskies with six hits and 5 RBIs in 16 at bats. The senior infielder finished the weekend with a .375 batting average over five games and this is only the beginning of Sanden this season. Transfer Hallie Siems also made quite the first impression for UConn against UCF last Saturday night, as she tossed her 18th complete game of her career. The senior pitcher went the distance for the Huskies and kept the potent Knights lineup off their footing all night. She only allowed four hits with one earned run and added seven strikeouts to the Huskies 3-2 win over the Knights. Sanden and Siems had a great start to the season for UConn, and they look to continue their early dominance this weekend at the NC State Tournament.
The Huskies are set to travel down South once again to Raleigh for the NC State Tournament. They will play five games throughout the weekend between Elon, Campbell, NC State and North Dakota State. UConn will open the weekend on Friday, Feb. 16 at 12:00 noon. The only game of this tournament that will be streamed on ESPN+ is the Huskies matchup between the host school, NC State on Saturday Feb. 17. First pitch is scheduled for 2:20 p.m..