JMU Sports Weekend Wrap: More Good Than Bad
If you felt like Earth got momentarily knocked off its axis yesterday, let us reassure that it did not. It probably just felt that way because Megan Good allowed a run to score in a 10-2 victory over ECU. It was the first earned run the junior pitcher had surrendered since way back on February 17. In fact, it broke a streak of 70.1 straight innings without giving up an earned run. It ballooned her ERA all the way up to 0.23 for the season. You can do the math yourself if you don’t believe us, but trust us. She’s a perfect 13-0 on the year, with 9 shutouts, including 1 no-hitter. Along the way she’s racked up 126 strikeouts and has a meager 3 earned runs in 90 innings pitched. If she wasn’t a Duke, we’d say that’s just unfair. Good and her teammates also defeated Pittsburgh 11-0 to move to 21-3 for the year.
Unfortunately, things didn’t work out quite so well for the Dukes on the hardwood. Precious Hall and the Lady Dukes picked the wrong night to have a very bad day. Coach O’Regan’s team failed in its bid to become one of 63 teams invited to play in UConn’s coronation, by losing to Elon 78-60 in the CAA Championship. Elon was the tourney’s #1 seed and deserved the win. The Phoenix came out shooting great and making 50% from the field in the first half. They actually shot even better after the break, hitting a 57% clip. The Dukes on the other hand were off coming out of the gates, and never managed to get on track. The ladies shot an abysmal 22.8% from the field. Precious Hall went down fighting, with 32 points. It was all Elon, all night though. The Dukes now wait and see what their post season fate has in store.
The Diamond Dukes picked up another series win over the weekend. The boys swept Coppin State in a Saturday double-header. It’s still early, but Coach Ike appears to have JMU Baseball heading in the right direction. After a couple of down years toward the end of the Spanky era, the Dukes are winning ballgames again. And they’re doing it in an exciting fashion. They scored a whopping 28 runs and 6 homers over the 2 games. At 11-3, it’s JMU’s best start since 2011. This is definitely a team to keep an eye on once CAA play starts up.
The JMU women’s lacrosse team (not to be confused with the JMU men’s varsity team, which still does not exist), dropped its second straight contest on Saturday. The Dukes fell to Rutgers 12-9 at home, after dropping a close on on the road to #6 Penn State earlier in the week. It’s never good to lose, but this team has always scheduled some challenging out of conference opponents to get ready for CAA play. This year’s no different, with a game against #1 Maryland still to come before a huge clash with #15 Towson to start league play. We’ve seen nothing so far to make us think, the ladies can’t take care of business and win the CAA.
