While students walked across the morning frost and battled the unpleasant gusts of late winter wind this past weekend, the UW women's softball team (1-3 Big Ten, 19-16 overall) was travelling the country making stops in near-tropical climates in preparation for the heart of its Big Ten schedule.
The Badgers make their triumphant return today against Illinois-Chicago (13-18 overall) in what will be their first home game of the 2004 season. They will follow it up Wednesday when they take on Loyola (5-1 Horizon, 15-15 overall) for their second home contest of the week.
UW notched its first conference win this weekend by beating Ohio State 3-1 and keeping pace in the early conference standings. As Head Coach Karen Gallagher sees it, Wisconsin's strength has been its pitching.
\We have a pitching staff that surprisingly has done a very good job for us,"" Gallagher said. ""They are finesse pitchers, so if their balls are not moving we're in trouble, but for the most part I think they've stepped up to the challenge.""
Gallagher commended her young pitching staff for its performance thus far.
""We've had Katie Layne, our junior pitcher, do a really good job and step up her level of play,"" Gallagher said. ""Freshman Eden Brock has come in here and really has done an awesome job setting the tone for some big wins for our program. Also, recently Sarah Gonzalez is back from an injury so I think she's really gonna help us through the Big Ten season.""
Very patient with the youth that surrounds her, Gallagher maintains a positive outlook on the development of her pitchers.
""I feel good about our pitching staff,"" she said. ""I think we need to get the experience, I think they just need to go through the growing pains.""
The aspect of their game that the Badgers have struggled with to this point in the season has been their run production, and if UW wants to sweep its opening games at home against the two teams from the Windy City, their bats will have to come alive to keep the pressure off the pitching staff.
""If you look at our wins, we already have more wins now than we did all of last season, so we are doing some good things,"" Gallagher said. ""I'm just concerned about our offensive attack because we are not supporting our pitching right now.""
While UW's offense is cause for concern, its latest victory was an encouraging confidence-booster for the young team. With a win against UIC or Loyola this week, UW could reach the 20-win plateau and head into a month of fierce Big Ten competition on a positive note with an invitation to the conference tournament at year's end well within reach.
