April 4, 2008

SOFTBALL: Lutes Face Strong Pacific Team in NWC Series

COMING UP: Pacific Lutheran (11-13 overall, 8-4 NWC) travels to Forest Grove, Ore., for a four-game Northwest Conference series against the Pacific Boxers (20-2 overall, 9-1 NWC). The teams will play a pair of seven-inning doubleheaders starting at noon on both Saturday and Sunday.

ABOUT THE BOXERS: The Lutes will face a Pacific team that has designs on taking the Northwest Conference title away from Linfield, which has won four straight conference crowns and which won the NCAA Division III national title in 2007. Linfield currently leads the NWC with an 11-1 record, the only loss coming to PLU on March 15. Pacific is 9-1 in the conference and has an impressive 20-2 overall record entering this weekend’s series. The Boxers are hitting .350 as a team, with three regulars hitting .400 or better. Kristen Croxford leads Pacific with a .463 batting average and she has also hit a pair of home runs. Caitlin Mastenbroek has a .462 average, and with 10 doubles, two triple and two homers, a team-best .769 slugging percentage. Freshman Stephanie Vanoudenhaegen is hitting .400 and has stolen 13 bases in 16 attempts. Other top hitters include Alicia Hawes at .385, Brooke Toy at .381 with three homers, and Brooke Fogwell at .356 with team highs of four homers and 24 runs batted in. The Boxers have one of the league’s best pitchers in Miranda McNealy, who is 10-1 with a 1.00 earned run average. McNealy has struck out 101 in 70 1/3 innings and is allowing opponents a paltry .146 batting average. Andrea Bansen is a strong No. 2 pitcher with an 8-1 record and a 3.68 earned run average. She averages exactly one strikeout per inning pitched.

ROAD WARRIORS: Pacific Lutheran maintains its “road warriors” status for one more weekend. Thus far this season the Lutes have played only four of their first 24 games at home, those games coming in a four-game conference series against Whitworth on March 8-9. PLU finishes the season with 10 of its final 12 games at the home field, starting with a noon doubleheader against Linfield on Saturday, April 12.

ABOUT THE LUTES: The Lutes come into the four-game series having lost eight of their last 10 games, including the last four on their recent spring break trip to California. PLU is hitting .305 as a team, led by freshman third baseman Caitlin Brown. Since joining the team six games into the season, Brown has seen action in 16 games, starting 13 of them, and is hitting .429. A contact hitter, Brown has fanned only twice in 42 at-bats this season. She has been perfect while handling 44 chances in the field. Another first-year Lute, shortstop Stephanie Mullen, carries a .354 average this season and has clubbed a pair of home runs. Rachel Wheeler-Hoyt is hitting .348 with two homers and a team-best 13 RBI, while Heather Walling is hitting .338 while contributing a team-best seven stolen bases. Hadley Schmitt is 5-9 with a 2.46 earned run average and Wheeler-Hoyt is 6-4 with a 3.98 ERA for the Lutes.

SPRING BREAK SUMMARY: PLU lost five of its six games on the recently completed spring break trip to California. After losing the opening game to Cal Lutheran, 4-3, the Lutes came back to pound the Regals, 9-0 in six innings and getting the trip off to a 1-1 start. La Verne got the measure of the Lutes, 5-1 and 8-7, and No. 7-ranked Redlands did the same, 6-0 and 7-2. Caitlin Brown hit .450 on the trip, going 9-for-20, while Stephanie Muller hit .412 with two doubles, a homer and five RBI in the six games. Heather Walling hit .389 on the trip with a doubles, two triples and five runs scored.

- PLU -