Softball Celebrates Home Opener with Doubleheader Sweep over Pitt

ANTHONY VASQUEZ: It’s been 328 grueling days since Syracuse has played at this field. Skytop Softball Stadium. The rest of that game all the way back on May ninth, a 19-2 blowout loss to the Clemson Tigers.  

Today’s story was a little bit different. S-U won the first leg of its doubleheader 5-4 and trounced the Pittsburgh Panthers 1-0 in the second game. Ariana Adams tossed a 7 inning complete game and Lindsey Hendrix did the same, allowing just 2 hits in her 7 innings. When asked about her pitching staff, coach Shanon Doepking had nothing but praise.  

Shannon Dopeking: I mean at the end of the day, all we care about is winning. I think what we ask from our pitchers is that they hold us in ball games and allow us to win, and that’s exactly what they did. Hold the score close enough to give the offense an opportunity to do what we did today.  

ANTHONY VASQUEZ: While game 2 didn’t require any heroic comeback attempts, game 1 did. The swinging orange were down 3-0 in the fifth inning and down 4-3 going into the bottom of the seventh. That was until Kelly Breen ripped a double down the left field line to tie the game at 4. Then with a runner on third with one out, Paris Woods scored on a game winning walk off wild pitch out of all things. But, at the end of the day, coach Dopeking says the win in game 1 along with the win in game 2 epitomizes her team’s toughness.  

Shannon Dopeking: I think that was definitely the mantra for the week for us to finish the game. So it was nice to see in both games we were able to kind of hold it. Then in the first game we obviously came back, so I think it was just something we talked a lot about, us figuring out as a young team how to finish a game.  

ANTHONY VASQUEZ:  Coach Dopeking’s squad to be back at it again at high noon tomorrow for the finale of this 3 game series. Look for Kaia Oliver to be the game 3 starter considering Lindsey Hendrix and Ariana Adams each threw over 120 in their respective complete games. Reporting from Skytop Softball Stadium, Anthony Vasquez CitrusTV.