Syracuse Softball: Lackluster Offense Leads to Two-Loss Day For Orange

Following a 1-1 first day, Syracuse Orange softball wasn't able to get any kind of offense going on Saturday and they finished their Las Vegas trip 1-3.

The first game of the day for the Syracuse was against the #9 Oklahoma Sooners. Senior Jocelyn Cater (0-2) started for Orange and got off to a rocky start after allowing a two-run home run in the top of the first, but Cater responded back by getting the next two batters out. After a fairly quick bottom of the inning, the Sooners hit another two-run home run to increase their lead to 4-0. Oklahoma would go on to score three more runs on Cater before she was taken out for Sydney O'Hara. Cater finished the day with seven earned runs, one walk and eight hits allowed. In relief, O'Hara did a great job only allowing one hit, three walks and no runs.

The story was the same in this game as it was in the last two, the Orange could not get anything going offensively. Syracuse was held to three hits - all of which were singles - and did not manage to get a runner in scoring position.

In the second game the Orange took on the Runnin' Rebels of UNLV. On the mound for the Orange in this one was sophomore AnnaMarie Gatti (1-1). Gatti was coming off of a dominant performance against Long Beach State where she threw a complete game shutout. In this one Gatti would not find that same success as she suffered her first loss of season. UNLV started their scoring early by scoring one run in both the second and third inning. In the top of the fourth inning the Orange managed to get the bases loaded, but only managed to get one run out of the opportunity, cutting the lead to 2-1. In the bottom of the fourth UNLV would respond by exploding for four runs to take a big 6-1 lead over the Orange. That would end up being the final score in this one as the Orange suffered their second loss of the day. For the Orange, Gatti finished the day throwing another complete game this time giving up six runs (three earned), nine hits, and walking two. Offensively the Orange could not get it going as they only managed four hits on the day, and couldn't get the big hit when it was needed.

Offense was the biggest takeaway from this weekend's games. The Orange only managed to score two runs on 14 hits over 28 innings. The bigger issue is the Orange had the bases loaded multiple times and were only able to score on a walk and hit by pitch. It is still very early in this season, but SU has to look to turn things around to be able to contend in the very tough ACC.

The Orange will travel to Atlanta next weekend where they hope to fix their 1-3 record as they take on Purdue and Ohio State in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge.