Covering UMHB Athletics and the stories behind the score
MARSHALL, Texas — The day before her team took the field for its ASC Tournament opener, UMHB head softball coach Melissa Mojica was asked about her pitching staff. Six different pitchers recorded at least five starts in the regular season, and four threw 45.0 innings or more, neither stat being especially common when it comes to a softball pitching staff.
MARSHALL, Texas — In a sport with a 40-game regular season, it is incredibly rare to go seven days without playing a game, much less 12. But that is the situation UMHB Softball has found itself in over the last two weeks, its regular season slate entirely wrapped up, and a weekend of anticipation at the ASC Tournament waiting ahead.
BELTON — Addy Todd broke for third base, then turned the corner and headed home in perhaps the most memorable play of Monday’s doubleheader.
BELTON — The bats got hot starting with Shorey Nguyen’s double in the first inning of Game 1 in Monday’s home opener. And they never really cooled off until Madelyn Denn’s RBI double gave UMHB a run-rule victory in Game 2.
BELTON — When Melissa Mojica fills out her lineup card ahead of Friday’s season-opener at Texas Lutheran, it will look fairly different from the way it did last season.
MARSHALL, Texas — It didn’t take much for UMHB Softball to go from being in the thick of a one-run tournament game to eyeing a significantly more daunting four-run deficit. All it took, in fact, was one swing with two outs in the sixth inning on Thursday afternoon.
BELTON — There are plenty of situations when home field advantage can be labeled as overrated. But not in the case of UMHB Softball.
BELTON — Coming into Saturday, just two teams had come away with a win over defending national champ ETBU: Case Western Reserve and Virginia Wesleyan. Both were ranked in the nation’s Top 10 at the time of those wins over the top-ranked Tigers.
BELTON — It takes a certain kind of player to excel in the leadoff spot.
The expectation is to be a spark at the top of the order, the sort of offensive contributor who can lay down a perfect bunt, or beat out an infield single in the game’s first at-bat.
This is Part 1 of a two-part series on the success of UMHB’s baserunning in baseball and softball this spring. The series originated from our conversations with head baseball coach Mike Stawski and head softball coach Melissa Mojica, as UMHB is currently one of three D-III institutions whose baseball and softball teams each rank in the Top 15 nationally in stolen bases per game. Part 2 featuring Cru Baseball and Mike Stawski will be published on April 8.