JMU Softball Advances to Super Regionals (Sweet 16), Will Host LSU
The dominant women of JMU softball overcame a slightly shaky day in the field with more of the prodigious power they’ve shown this postseason and then ruthlessly tacked on runs late to win their first-ever NCAA Regional at Veterans Memorial Park in Harrisonburg 5-1 over fellow Virginia dreamer Longwood. With the win, the nation’s #7 overall seed advances to next weekend’s Super Regional where they’ll welcome none other than the SEC’s LSU Tigers to the Valley for a best-of-three series. The stakes couldn’t be higher as the winner of the series will advance to the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City the first weekend in June (which just so happens to be the Madison Alumni Conference back in the ‘Burg where we will definitely be for the first time just sayin’). And for anyone thinking the Dukes will be nervous against a true blue-blood of college athletics, just keep in mind the Dukes are 2-1 versus the SEC this year with wins over fellow tourney teams Auburn and Tennessee and a tight loss to Alabama. In all seriousness, a best-of-three might be the ideal format for the Dukes as we’ll take the 1-1A pitching combo of sophomore Megan Good (who didn’t allow a ball out of the infield in today’s regional final!) and senior Jailyn Ford against anyone anywhere in that format. Today’s game was fraught with huge nerves early but both pitchers were stellar throughout the first few innings. A couple of uncommon fielding miscues gave Longwood a 1-0 lead though thankfully Megan Good worked out of a jam to limit the damage. Then the power took over as Jessica Mrozek took her Daniel Murphy-esque postseason to another level with a clutch bomb (I’m talking enormous bomb) to tie the game at 1 and then Erica Field did what Erica Field does with a dinger to calm everyone’s nerves and give the Dukes the lead 2-1. After both coaches got in the umps face over an “inconsistent” strike zone the Lancers made the ill-fated decision to take out their starter and the Dukes took advantage. The bottom part of the JMU lineup went nuts in the top of the seventh (the Dukes were technically the “visitors” in the tourney in Game 1 today) with nine-hitter Hannah Hayes coming through with the Geico Insurance RBIs that gave Good all she needed to close out the Lancers. Needless to say, when the Dukes lineup produces they way they did this weekend to go with Good and Ford, us old-timers get a very ’94 Field Hockey feeling about this group! (Again, just sayin’) Rob and I are almost inappropriately excited to welcome a truly worthy tailgating adversary to the ‘Burg next weekend in the form of the Bayou Bengals for the first time in what seems like forever. The neutral site football game versus West Virginia at FedEx was great but not since ’08 App. St. have we really seen a school that forces us to break out the big guns in the form of seafood-boil pots, open-flame charcoal, and homemade liquor. LSU took out Arizona St. in their own regional today to earn the trip to the Commonwealth but for all their pedigree, we’re not really sure they understand just what kind of purple-and-gold insanity their walking into this time around. Rob will be back later this week with a full breakdown of the squirrel/blue-crab/Massanutten-creek-peach brandy vs. nutria/crawfish/homemade-absinthe craziness (and also the game haha), but suffice to say this is going to be an all-timer you don’t want to miss over the upcoming holiday weekend. Oh yeah, and the Diamond Dukes baseball squad put a hurting on Hofstra this weekend too in order to advance to the CAA Baseball tourney in Charleston in Coach Ikenberry’s first season too so we’ve got all kinds of pleasantly unexpected Dukes action still to come!
I thought the same re: ’94 field hockey yesterday. Wish I thought of the Nutria…
It looks like we’ve had 8 common opponents this season.
Comparing Season Achievements (As of 5/21)
LSU is 8-3 against them
JMU is 8-1
JMU has two players (Good/Ford) in the Top 25 for the year.
LSU does not have any.
JMU has the 4th/6th best ERA in the country
LSU has the 5th best
JMU has the 2nd best Team ERA in the country
LSU has the 6th
JMU has the player with the 50th best OBP (Ford)
LSU has the 12th best OBP (Bianka Bell)
JMU Not ranked
LSU has the 6th and 20th best RBI players (Sahvanna Jaquish/Bell)
JMU has the 28th most SO (Good)
LSU has the 29th (Hoover)
JMU has the best purple/gold combination in the counrty
LSU top 5
Should be a good series.
Comparing Season Achievements (As of 5/21)
that sentence should have been below our records against common opponents. Common opponents records are as of Today.
Hey folks,
The only option for buying tickets this morning was to get tickets to both day. I can’t make the Friday game, so if anyone wants my two tickets, they’re yours.
Can’t wait to be there on Saturday!
There were a lot of requests on the CSNBBS board requesting TIX for JMU ppl.
Can’t wait until Friday to get this thing going.
Go Dukes!
Thanks Rob (not that one)! I’ll try to go offer the tickets up over there.
O.K.
For those of us without tickets … how can we watch?
Go Lady DUKES !!! Make us proud … 🙂
Option A: Sit on the hill on 42
TV Options: Friday ESPN 2, Saturday ESPN
Just announced they are adding another 700 seats and will sell the tix Thurs 9am online.
Additional tix will be in LF and on 3rd base line. They will not block the RF hill seats.