Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Softball Travels to Colgate this Weekend with PL Tournament Berth on the Line
5/4/2007 8:00:00 AM | Softball
May 4, 2007
LEWISBURG, Pa. - The Bucknell softball team enters this weekend's four-game series at Colgate alive for the fourth, and final, position in next week's Patriot League Tournament. If the Bison win at least two games they will earn their third postseason appearance in the last four years.
Bucknell, which sports a 7-9 Patriot League record and is 15-30-1 overall, can vault as high as second in the final standings. To do that, it would need to sweep the Raiders and then hope Colgate, which is 9-5 in Patriot League play, wins no more than one game in a possible make-up doubleheader with first-place Lehigh next week.
The Bison enter this weekend's four-game set having won six of their last eight Patriot League contests, all on the road. They have claimed three of four each of the last two weekends at Army and Holy Cross. In fact, their current four-game unbeaten streak is their longest since an eight-game winning streak late in the 2005 campaign that featured a pair of victories over Colgate.
Bucknell holds a 34-30 advantage over the Raiders in the all-time series that began in 1988. The two teams split their eight meetings over the last two years.
With both Erin Curatola (River Edge, N.J./River Dell) and Ashley Carlson (Fairless Hills, Pa./Pennsbury) just shy of hitting .350, Bucknell possesses two of the top six hitters in the Patriot League. Curatola, who had a 10-game hitting streak snapped two weeks ago, has currently hit in four straight, and 20 of the last 24. She has seen her average rise from .303 to its current team-best .349 over that span. The designated player has failed to record a hit in back-to-back games on just one occasion this season and has a team-best 53 hits, the fifth-best single-season total in program history.
Carlson, who is tied for the league lead with a career-high 11 stolen bases, has been just as impressive from her leadoff position in the batting order with a .348 average. She has currently hit in six straight games and is tied with Curatola for the team lead with 14 multiple-hit contests. Carlson's career-high 47 hits, a figure more than double her freshman-year total of 22, place her just four shy of joining the Bison single-season top-10 list.
Freshman Mary Pavlovich (Johnstown, Pa./Richland) is the third Bucknell player hitting at least .300 as she owns a .310 average. The third baseman ranks second on the team with 24 runs batted in and leads the squad with 25 runs scored. She is also just one double shy of tying Lauren Wible for the most in a single season in Bison history with 15.
Senior Lauren Litts (East Stroudsburg, Pa./East Stroudsburg) has provided the power for Bucknell this spring with four home runs and 33 runs batted in. The program's career leader in home runs (20) and runs batted in (107), Litts stands tied for seventh on the single-season home run list with her four this year, and is just two runs batted in shy of equaling her own program record of 35 she shares with current assistant coach Angie Stackhouse.
Bucknell has a four-person pitching staff with each member showing flashes of success. Katie McDonald (York, Pa./West York Area) has not allowed more than two earned runs in any of her eight appearances since the beginning of April and picked up her fourth win of the season on Sunday by holding Holy Cross to just six hits and one run in six innings of work.
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Meg Muirhead (Glendale, Calif./Flintridge Academy) has struggled recently, but has held the opponent without an earned run in six of her 15 appearances this season. She had a stretch of 11.1 innings without allowing a single run earlier this year, which included seven innings of shutout relief in a doubleheader with Lehigh.
Christie Wiest (Centre Hall, Pa./Penns Valley) is the lone junior on the staff full of sophomores and she has been the most consistent. She has pitched 14 complete games and recently fired the team's first shutout of the season when she limited Holy Cross to just three hits. Wiest has piled up a career-high nine wins and now has 20 in her career, which is tied for seventh with Dawn Becker on the Bucknell career list. Already the single-season strikeout record holder with 116, Wiest is third on the career list with 252. With her next appearance she will equal her own program record for appearances in a season with 29.
Colgate enters the weekend series having just swept a doubleheader from Binghamton on Thursday. A five-inning no-hitter by Kelsey Nordstrom highlighted the sweep for the Raiders, who are 19-22 on the season. Nordstrom leads the team with an 11-7 record and a 1.43 ERA. She has five shutouts and 15 complete games.
Kortney Hannah is the lone Colgate player with a batting average better than .300. Her .304 average, 15 runs scored and 35 hits all pace the squad, which is hitting just .238 overall and is averaging only 3.1 runs per game compared to 3.7 for Bucknell.
Should Bucknell win at least two games this weekend and claim the league's final postseason berth ahead of Army, it will begin preparing for next week's Patriot League Tournament. The three-day, double-elimination event will be held at Lehigh starting Thursday, May 10, and concluding on Saturday, May 12. It is the sixth consecutive year the Mountain Hawks' Kaufman Field will host the championship.
