Game On

Softball
Jeremy Rice


After the Atlantic 10 and home opener was cancelled this past weekend, the Massachusetts softball team will finally put cleat to grass at the UMass Softball Complex tomorrow.

The Minutewomen (11-12-1) were slated to kick off their home schedule with a double-header Sunday against St. Bonaventure, but the poor field conditions caused by the heavy amount of snow melt forced the teams to cancel the meetings.

Dartmouth (4-13) will come to town hoping to score at least one more run than it managed last season, which would give them a total of...one.

UMass bounced the Big Green right out of the Pioneer Valley in 2006, sweeping the double-header by a total score of 28-0, inlcuding a 20-0 thrashing in the night cap.

The field at the Complex is still soft and soggy, and obviously not ideal. It is truly unfortunate that UMass softball has to endure this every year. Coach Elaine Sortino is one of the best in the business and her team seems to suffer from an unavoidable South/West bias (like football's east-coast bias).

Teams who play where it's warm year-round have such an advantage, not only in having more time to practice on real playing surfaces, but in the reputation they build early on. UMass is a game under .500 right now, but no one is questioning its place as a front runner in the A-10.

People know the Minutewomen are a very good squad, but winning fewer games than you lose during these early tournaments (where at-large bids are won and lost) makes it so difficult to keep up.

Tomorrow will mark the first time the team sets foot on its field, and they are already 24 games into the schedule. Very few other top-tier teams have to deal with that. But somehow, Sortino pulls through year after year.

Remember, this team made three Women's College World Series appearances in the 90s playing the same type of schedule. And last year's team had an even worse record coming into the A-10 schedule, only to come a game away from the WCWS.

As Sortino said to me earlier today, "Let's hope we get some sunshine."