Coach Joe DiPietro summed up his team’s performance in the Citrus Classic with one word: “inconsistency.”
The Owls played in Kissimmee, Fla. this weekend in the Citrus Classic against some tough opponents and left Florida with a 1-4 record.
The softball season has been filled with inconsistent play with a 2-7 record and it showed in Florida. Temple’s first game against Louisville was a nightmare, as Louisville crushed the Owls with a final score of 8-0. Both the offense and the defense was nonexistent having only produced 4 hits in the game while giving up 6 earned runs. Their next game against Fairfield was a similar performance, although Temple’s pitching kept the Owls in the game.
Usually it is the Owl’s offense that keeps them in games, but this time it was the pitching. With the offense unable to produce any type of consistent at-bats, the Owls faltered once again with a final score of 3-0 Fairfield. But against Georgetown it was a different story. The bats showed up to this game as they tallied 19 runs on 17 hits to beat Georgetown 19-13. Although it was a nice win, the pitching allowed Georgetown to get back in the game with an eight-run fifth inning.
“Our offense picked up in the Georgetown game, but again our inconsistent pitching let us down,” DiPietro said. “I don’t know if they lacked confidence, but they haven’t been able to be consistent. I mean they shouldn’t have let in eight runs and allow Georgetown to get a run. I’m glad we got the win, but we shouldn’t let that happen.”
It was a little different against No. 10 Oregon, however. The Owls hung in there until the fifth inning. Before that, they were putting up a good fight against them with the score tied at 4 a piece going into the fifth. But then, the pitching was not able to hold the deadlock and eventually Oregon took the game away with the final score of 11-4 Oregon.
“Against Oregon, I thought we had some hunger in the game,” DiPietro said. “We actually came back and fought hard all game to try and win the game. But, our pitching again allowed runs at the bottom of the order. If we just try and contain the bottom of the order, then we’ll be fine because we’re able to hold the top of the order.”
The Owls suffered the same problems in their final game against Georgia Tech. It was comparable to the Oregon game, but was blown open in the end with the final score of 17-8 Georgia Tech.
Hoon Jin can be reached at hoon.jin@temple.edu.
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