The University of Memphis softball team notched its fourth conference victory of the season during a 2-2 week that saw the Tigers pick up victories against Mississippi Valley State and Rutgers University.
The 4-0 win against Mississippi Valley State kicked off the week. The loss dropped the Devilettes to 7-32 on the season, but Memphis head coach Natalie Poole felt it was still a dangerous matchup since the teams were playing just one game as opposed to a series.
"We knew we were gonna see their best," Poole said. "We got them to make a pitching change, but it's also sometimes difficult as far as timing with pitch speed. So, it took us a little bit to get things going. We put the ball in play, had some people on, didn't score them, but it was nice to be able to come back later on and do what we needed to do."
Freshmen Christian Novak and Calli Irvin took the mound for the Tigers against Mississippi Valley State and allowed only two hits in the shutout.
Memphis (20-26, 4-10 AAC) hoped to carry the momentum into their three-game series at Rutgers, but dropped each game of Friday's doubleheader. The Tigers kept things close in the opening contest, but fell 3-1 in extra innings on a two-run walk-off home run.
The backend of the doubleheader was not nearly as close, with the Scarlet Knights stomping the Tigers 14-2. Memphis entered the fourth inning down only one run, but it proved to be a disastrous inning for the Tigers with Rutgers scoring 11 unearned runs due to three Memphis errors.
But the Tigers refused to go home empty handed, as they finally broke through with a 4-3 win on Saturday to close the series. Memphis senior pitcher Ellen Roberts was credited with the victory, her 10th of the season. The win adds to what's been a historic year for Roberts, who became the all-time Memphis leader in both wins and strikeouts earlier in the season.
Coach Poole was pleased with how her team responded after going winless in the first two contests.
"We could have walked away with that first win," Poole said. "It was definitely a battle but we came out on Saturday, we recovered, we pitched well enough to be in the ball game. We played much better defense than what we showed in the second game against Rutgers, and, so, it was nice to come away with the win."
Moving forward, the Tigers host a doubleheader against Alcorn State Wednesday before hitting the road again for a three-game series at the University of South Florida.
According to Poole, mid-week games like the ones against Alcorn State provide the Tigers with opportunities to work on things that can't be simulated in practice.
"It's always nice to be able to play mid-week," Poole said. "We like to be able to get those games in just to be able to do try to do something different again instead of practice. We can get in the box, create some live defensive plays that we can't really do sometimes in practice, get the energy up, get the competitiveness up during the mid-week so we're not flat when it comes to the weekend."
The doubleheader against Alcorn State will begin Wednesday afternoon with the first pitch set for 4 p.m. at the Tiger Softball Complex.
