CMU softball hosts first-place Ball State, Miami this weekend
The Ball State Cardinals — first place of the Mid-American Conference West Division — will come to Mount Pleasant this weekend with last year's MAC tournament title and two consecutive regular season titles.
“Ball State is always big competition,” said senior Kari Seddon, who's 8-7 on the season. “Ball State has always been the team to beat since I’ve been here. It’s a team we’ve gone up against. We’ve always had real good, close games.”
At 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. on Sunday, CMU will host Ball State at Margo Jonker Stadium, trying to replace them ontop of the MAC West. Today, the Chippewas will face Miami with a doubleheader beginning at 2 p.m.
“Both teams are very good,” said CMU head coach Margo Jonker. “Miami has had a good year and Ball State has had a banner year.”
The Miami RedHawks have struggled this season at 17-15 (3-5 in MAC), but still bring in the second-best earned run average in the MAC. CMU has the best ERA in the MAC at 2.09. Seddon’s 1.89 ERA and four shutouts will most likely be in the circle against both Miami and Ball State this weekend.
“I hear Miami only has one pitcher,” Seddon said. “We got to keep the bats hot. We only had one hit against Michigan and we have to get the bats going.”
Miami’s ace pitcher is Jessica Simpson (15-10), who has started all but nine games for the RedHawks this year. She has thrown 173 1/3 of the team's 216 1/3 innings, but the Chippewas' goal is to knock her out of the game. Simpson is the reason Miami’s ERA is so impressive, boasting a 1.62 ERA and struck out 187 batters so far this year.
“I anticipate excellent competition and I anticipate us being sharp and come out on top,” Jonker said. “This is a big weekend for conference play, but every weekend is a big weekend in conference.”
The one-hit loss against Michigan wasn’t all bad.
“Our defense was solid, Kara (Dornbos) pitched good it was a huge confidence booster to do that against the No. 2 team,” Seddon said. “Two of their runs came on one swing, one bad pitch.”
Minus the bad pitch, the game would've been a much-closer 1-0 finish.
CMU is only one game back from Ball State, who plays a doubleheader Friday against second-place Eastern Michigan (20-8, 6-2) in Ypsilanti.
“We’re excited to get back to playing at home, but it’ll be cold,” Seddon said. “We’re just focused on Chippewa softball -we’ve been working on playing our game the last couple days.”
Chippewa softball can put themselves in a position to take the lead in the MAC West this weekend.
“We’ll need consistant defense, like we’ve had and we have to swing the bats like we have,” Jonker said. “I’m looking forward to playing at home, in front of our home fans.”
