The Owls showed more consistency this past weekend than they had previously by finishing 3-2 in Florida. They played in Clearwater, Florida in the USF Under Armor Showcase and came out with much needed victories.
The Owls played back-to-back games on Friday and won both games in similar fashion. Quinnipaic was the first opposition and the Owls were able to shut them out while producing enough runs to secure the victory. The Owls scored the runs on nine hits while Kelsey Dominik shut out Quinnipaic for a complete game shutout.
Temple’s next game was against Youngstown State and had similar results as the first. The offense provided the runs and the pitching provided a much-needed solid outing once again. While a shutout performance wasn’t in the cards, the pitching staff was able to hold Youngstown State to one run, leading to a 7-1 decision in favor of the Owls.
“I thought we played very well,” coach Joe DiPietro said. “We had contributions coming from a lot of people, I thought we played well. Our hitting really showed up and our pitching was really good. I thought our pitchers did great. We stopped walking people and we really worked on it during the week.”
Against SIU-Edwardsville things turned from the good to the bad. Both the pitching and the batting were nonexistent as the Owls gave up 10 runs while producing two hits. As a result, the Owls lost 10-0.
The next game against Tennessee Tech started off rocky for the Owls pitchers as they gave up a pair of runs in the first. But, the bats came alive and gave the Owls a 3-2 lead going into the 2nd. With couple of solid outings in between, the Owl’s bats came through once again to give Temple more breathing room with a score of 6-3 in a three-run fifth inning. Tennessee Tech did rally to make the score 6-5, but the Owls were able to fend them off with a final score of 7-5.
The team’s fifth, and final, game against UT-Chattanooga was somewhat similar to the SIU game. Although they were able to produce three runs, the pitching gave up runs early in the game and the Owls could not muster a comeback. Early runs cost the Owls in this game as they gave up more runs later in the game with the final score of 9-3 Chattanooga. Despite the result in their final game, DiPietro said he wasn’t disappointed with his team’s performance this weekend and rather it’ll give them confidence going forward.
“This definitely gives us more confidence going in (to the City of Clearwater Spring Invitational),” DiPietro said. “And, I always believed that our team would be good and it showed this weekend what we’re capable of.”
-Hoon Jin
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