By Tyler McCord, Staff Writer
This weekend in Hempstead, the Hofstra Pride softball team remained on a hot streak by outscoring UNC Wilmington by a combined score of 11-0. “The weekend went well,” said head coach Bill Edwards. “We had good pitching, good defense and got timely hitting.”
In the first of two games freshman Olivia Galati was inside the pitching circle. As usual, Galati cruised, by striking out fourteen batters and only giving up one hit through seven innings. The 3-0 victory for the Pride gave Galati her twentieth win of the season, which now makes her one of only seven pitchers in Hofstra history to achieve a 20-win season.
Along with the pitching came the batting that gave Galati the insurance runs. “It is important to be consistent with our play,” explained Edwards. “We want to play up to our potential every game.” Although Hofstra only had three hits in the first game, the Pride took advantage of third inning errors committed by the Seahawks and turned them into runs. It was senior left fielder Christie Novatin, who had the official lone RBI for the Pride.
Following the 3-0 win came another win for the Pride; this time scoring eight runs in five innings played with to final of 8-0. Another outstanding performance inside the circle came from sophomore Erin Wade. She recorded only three strikeouts but followed in Galati’s footsteps with another one-hitter. “Our goal is to come to the ballpark everyday and focus on playing better,” Edwards said. “We need to continue to play our game.” With Wade taking care of business from the circle, it was the batters that took care of business from the plate. The first four batters of the line-up anchored the team with a combined total of five runs, six hits and five RBI’s. Three of the teams eight RBI’s came from senior firstbaseman Michele DePasquale. Junior shortstop, Trisha Dreslinski, helped the team by adding two hits, an RBI and a run scored against the Seahawks.
About forty-five minutes away on Wednesday afternoon, Hofstra fell on the road to the Long Island University Blackbirds by a score of 5-8. The 28-14 Blackbirds jumped on Galati early by scoring two runs off a homerun in the first inning. It was the Pride whose bats were silenced until the fourth inning when it scored two runs, but LIU answered right back with three to stretch the lead 8-2. The Pride could not play catch up and only scored three runs throughout the next three innings. Hofstra came up a few timely hits short of beating LIU and with that the Pride fell to LIU by a final score of 5-8 which gives the Pride an overall record of 34-9.
This weekend the Pride will face the 31-15 Georgia State Panthers in a CAA matchup. With the next three games on the road, the Pride will have to look to their coach’s advice by keeping up their consistent play. “This team cares about each other,” explained Edwards. “Every one of them strives to be the best player they can be and they all look to get better.”
