Softball Falls in NCAA’s, Offseason Upon Us
Congrats on a great run!
Softball’s magical and historic season came to a tough end over the weekend when they fell in a regional JMU hosted for the first time. After splitting their first two games of the regional in tight contests against Binghamton and NC State, they fell to Fordham 2-1 in tough game beset by weather delays. The Dukes showed great fight by having to sleep on a late 2-0 deficit with only 4 outs remaining on Saturday night and come back to finish the game Sunday. The promptly rallied in the 7th when play resumed, scoring a run, putting the tying run on base, and then missing what might’ve been a season-saving extra base hit by inches down the line. But in the end it wasn’t quite enough and it’s sad to see such a wonderful season end. A program-best 48-10 record, including an undefeated mark in CAA play, and a #15 national ranking (as high as #12 in RPI) while earning the right to host JMU’s first-ever NCAA regional and drawing large, enthusiastic crowds is NOTHING at all to hang any heads over though. Congrats ladies and thanks for teaching us a thing or two about a new-for-us JMU sport this spring!
On the other diamond, the baseball team’s season, and thankfully Spanky McFarland’s run as head coach, were mercy killed while you weren’t looking and really there’s nothing to see. A once-proud program stayed more than a few seasons too long with at the ball with this regime and McFarland goes out on a dismal 18-33, 6-18 CAA season. You’d have to think just about anything will be better than that moving forward.
And just like that, the silly season here at JMUSB begins. With the exception of a few track athletes that we’ll be hoping have exceptional performances at NCAA’s in two weeks, JMU’s 2014-15 year in sports is over. That means we’ll be moving on to jokes, gimmicks, big-picture posts (mainly lamenting another lost year in conference news), and getting excited over the plans for the new arena (we’re going to resist the “new Convo” label because the Convo was always a bush-league name to begin with). And in case you were wondering: 110 days till football season.
