Baylor
Tulsa
SB Hosts Baylor Invitational
2/20/2020 6:10:00 PM | Softball
Lady Bears are 6-0 at home this season
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BAYLOR LADY BEARS (8-2) Location: Waco, Texas Conference: Big 12 Head Coach: Glenn Moore (Northwestern St., 1993) Roster | Stats | Game Notes |
BAYLOR (8-2) vs. BAYLOR INVITATIONAL February 21-23 Waco, Texas • Getterman Stadium Live Stats: baylorstats.com Listen: 101.3 FM WATCH: Big 12 Now on ESPN+ |
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
Riding a six-game winning streak that included a sweep at last weekend's Getterman Classic, the Baylor softball team (8-2) will host a loaded field for the Baylor Invitational that begins Friday at Getterman Stadium.
It's a big step up in competition with a round-robin schedule that includes two games against Illinois (5-3) and one each versus 17th-ranked Minnesota (5-4), Tulsa (8-1) and Texas State (7-2). On the opening day, the Lady Bears will face Tulsa at 3:45 p.m. and Illinois at 6.
"It's one of the strongest fields we've had for this tournament," Baylor coach Glenn Moore said. "We've occasionally had a good team come in, but to have this many teams that are all good, I told the girls that somebody could play really well this weekend and not win a game. That's the quality of this tournament."
Hitting .353 as a team, Baylor is averaging 5.7 runs per game and is coming off an 8-3 win over Prairie View A&M in Sunday's championship game of the Getterman Classic. Led by sophomore third baseman Lou Gilbert (.444), the Lady Bears have eight starters hitting at least .350.
"We know the potential to be a good team is there," Moore said. "We've yet to put it all together where we're playing that way consistently, whether it might be getting timely hits or executing the short game, playing good defense. I think we've done well in all aspects, we just haven't consistently done well in all aspects."
One of the pleasant surprises early in the season has been sophomore DP Josie Bower, who was named to the Getterman Classic all-tournament team along with Gilbert, pitcher Gia Rodoni, second baseman Nicky Dawson, freshman infielder/outfielder Emily Hott and outfielder Kyla Walker.
"To be able to support my team like that is really meaningful and something I'm really blessed to do," said Bower, who is hitting .368 with two doubles, one triple, a home run and seven RBI.
Walker, sidelined by an injury last season, is one of three regulars hitting at least .400. But she has to "get my confidence back up" at the plate to get back to the level when she has hit well over .400 each of her first three seasons.
"We've played pretty well so far, but I still feel like we could do better at timely hitting and aspects of that," she said.
Baylor's pitching has been solid enough with an overall ERA of 2.40 and a better than 3-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Rodoni, also coming back from injury, is 4-1 with an impressive 1.27 ERA and 43 strikeouts in 27.2 innings.
"I couldn't ask for much more out of (Rodin) this early," Moore said. "I want to see a little more efficiency out of the other ones. I think we're going on the right direction. We just need to keep going in that direction. We don't have to be in midseason form . . . we just want to see improvements in small amounts."
Moore has a high level of confidence in freshman Aliyah Pritchett, but the pitcher/shortstop is hitting just .222 and is 2-0 with a 5.09 ERA in four appearances in the circle.
"Aliyah is a special athlete, and she's going to hit those numbers," Moore said. I'm not the least bit concerned about it. . . . She's a dangerous hitter. I'm expecting her to get better every at-bat. She needs to have failure to get to that point, and it's our job to coach her through that."
In a busy weekend schedule, Baylor will play Texas State at 2:30 p.m. and Minnesota at 4:45 p.m. Saturday, then wrap up the tournament with another game against Illinois at 11 a.m. Sunday.
"It's really exciting to see that type of competition," Bower said. "We started off really well in Clearwater (Fla.) with teams like Auburn and Louisville. It's kind of exciting to have them here at home."
All the games this weekend will be streamed by Big 12 Now on ESPN+.
TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
FRIDAY, FEB. 21
9 a.m. Minnesota vs. Texas State
11:15 a.m. Tulsa vs. Minnesota
1:30 p.m. Texas State vs. Illinois
3:45 p.m. Baylor vs. Tulsa
6 p.m. Baylor vs. Illinois
SATURDAY, FEB. 22
10 a.m. Illinois vs. Tulsa
12:15 p.m. Texas State vs. Minnesota
2:30 p.m. Baylor vs. Texas State
4:45 p.m. Baylor vs. Minnesota
SUNDAY, FEB. 23
9 a.m. Minnesota vs. Tulsa
11 a.m. Baylor vs. Illinois
1p.m. Tulsa vs. Texas State
STORY LINES
• Baylor hosts its second consecutive home tournament over the weekend as Tulsa, Illinois, Texas State and No. 17 Minnesota comes to Waco for the Baylor Invitational.
• Baylor is a combined 59-23 vs. the Baylor Invitational field.
• All Baylor games of the Baylor Invitational will be aired on Big 12 Now on ESPN+. Non-Baylor games will be shown on FloSports.
• Every Baylor softball game will be on the radio at 101.3 FM.
• Baylor head coach Glenn Moore picked up win No. 900 over the weekend when BU defeated Grand Canyon, 10-2 (5) on Friday, Feb. 14.
• Baylor won the 2020 Getterman Classic as the Lady Bears swept through the competition with a 5-0 record.
• Nicky Dawson led the way for Baylor at the plate over the week as she hit .538 with four of her hits going for extra bases, three RBI, three walks and zero strikeouts.
• Josie Bower hit the first BU home run at Getterman Stadium in the 2020 season with a three-run bomb over the left field wall. In total, Bower finished with six RBI on Feb. 14 as she had a double, triple and homer in the first two games of the tournament.
• In the circle, Gia Rodoni and Sidney Holman-Mansell each had spectacular outings over the weekend. Holman-Mansell finished one shy of her career record with 10 strikeouts vs. Prairie View A&M, while Rodoni racked up 16 Ks vs. Western Illinois, a mark also one shy of her career best.
• Nicky Dawson, Gilbert, Hott, Kyla Walker, Rodoni and Bower were named to the Getterman Classic All-Tournament team.
• Baylor has recorded four double plays this season. Only one has been the conventional 6-4-3. BU has turned an 8-3 double play against Auburn, a 7-6-5-2 double play against Louisville and a 9-6-2-1 double play against Missouri State.
• Baylor welcomes back 17 returners and six starters from a year ago. That does not include Gia Rodoni, Kyla Walker and Maddison Kettler who are back after missing the 2019 season due to injury.
QUICK HITS
• Baylor will play five opponents ranked in the preseason Coaches Top 10 and four opponents in the preseason Coaches Top 25. In all, the Lady Bears play 12 games against Top 10 foes and eight games against Top 25 foes.
• Of the 20 games against teams ranked the preseason Coaches Top 25, only six of them are at home (3 vs. No. 3 Oklahoma, 1 vs. No. 8 Minnesota, 2 vs. No. 6 Texas). Three are neutral-site games (2 vs. No. 9 Florida State, 1 vs. No. 23 Auburn), and the remaining 10 are true road games (1 at No. 6 Texas, 3 at No. 7 Florida, 3 at No. 13 Oklahoma State, 3 at No. 18 Texas Tech, 1 at No. 24 Arkansas).
• Baylor will play 10 games against four programs that advanced to the 2019 Women's College World Series - Oklahoma, Florida, Minnesota and Oklahoma State).
• BU was picked fifth in the Big 12 preseason coaches poll behind Oklahoma, Texas, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech.
WEEKEND SCOUTING REPORT
• Tulsa is 8-1 to start the season. The Golden Hurricane has played one team receiving votes in the polls - Mississippi State - and won, 2-1 on Feb. 14.
• RHP Samantha Pochop was named to the American Athletic weekly honor roll as she threw 11 innings with 21 strikeouts and a 0.64 ERA. She is the second Golden Hurricane to receive a weekly honor this season as RHP/DP Chenise Delce was selected a week ago after hitting .571 with three homers, a double and five RBI.
• There will be some familiar faces in the Illinois dugout over the weekend. The Illini head coach, Tyra Perry, played for Moore at LSU alongside Britni Sneed Newman. Illinois' outfielder Rhein Trochim is a Waco native and played at Midway.
• Illinois is coming off a 1-3 weekend at the Big Ten/ACC Challenge and is 5-3 on the season.
• Delaney Rummell was named the Big Ten Softball Co-Freshman of the Week after leading her team at the plate with a .400 average with four hits, four runs and four RBI. Three of her hits were home runs.
• Texas State is riding a five-game winning streak and is 7-2 on the season.
• Bailee Carter leads the Bobcats at the plate with a .417 average, while ArieAnn Bell has a team-best five home runs. In the circle, Texas State's pitching staff has divided its work evenly among Tori McCann, Dalilah Barrera and Meagan King as the three combine for 59 strikeouts.
• Minnesota, fresh off its first-ever Women's College World Series in the NCAA era, is one the road for the third-straight weekend as the Gophers have been in Clearwater, Fla. the past two weekends. Minnesota has already played four ranked opponents (2-2) and is 5-4 on the year.
• Minnesota's Amber Fiser is the NCAA active leader in strikeouts (737). She's already got 71 in 43 innings this season.
