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USF softball opens season with 8-1 win vs. Maine
USF softball opened its 2012 season on Friday afternoon with an 8-1 home victory against Maine, with freshman Sam Greiner striking out eight batters in six innings.
USF got all the offense it needed in the first inning, with three straight two-out hits -- RBI singles by Kourtney Salvarola and Kenshyra Jackson, then a two-run double by LSU transfer Jessica Mouse, who made her Bulls debut. USF looked to end the game by mercy rule in five innings, but Maine salvaged a single run off reliever Sara Nevins in the fifth to extend the game to a full seven innings. Greiner came back in the game and pitched two more scoreless innings to close out the win.
If you weren't sure about opening-day intensity, Bulls coach Ken Eriksen was ejected in the top of the fifth for arguing an illegal-pitch call, even as his team was up 8-0 and three outs away from victory. Twice in the fifth inning, USF fielded what appeared to be inning-ending popouts, only to have the out negated by an illegal-pitch call. ... Read more
Freshman Greiner gets nod in USF softball opener
USF softball opens its 2012 season with a home doubleheader Friday afternoon, and coach Ken Eriksen said Thursday that freshman left-hander Sam Greiner will get the opening-game start at 1:45 against Maine.
Greiner, a top recruit from Sparta, N.J., is one of three starting pitchers Eriksen intends to use this season, along with sophomore lefty Sara Nevins of Pinellas Park and junior right-hander Lindsey Richardson.
"We've got three pitchers I think we can throw against anybody in the country. We're fortunate," Eriksen said. "I think Greiner, Richardson and Nevins are a pretty good three, and then (senior right-hander Brittany) Bowles is going to do a pretty good job as a middle relief person right now." ... Read more
USF softball picked to finish 5th in Big East
The Big East has released its preseason softball poll of league coaches, and USF has both the motivation of being picked just fifth out of 13th teams, but also an awareness of how up for grabs the conference is this season.
The league's 13 coaches gave five different teams first-place votes -- USF picked up one (and coaches can't vote for their own team) and a total of 19 vote-points separate preseason pick DePaul (130 points) from the Bulls (111), with just 10 points between first and fourth.
The fifth-place pick is actually a spot lower than where USF finished last season, going 33-21 overall and 13-5 in the Big East. As we wrote in our season preview last week, Bulls coach Ken Eriksen has nearly all his bats and his top three pitchers back from 2011, with some top-tier newcomers expected to step in as well.
USF opens its 2012 season with a home doubleheader on Feb. 10 against Maine and Florida Gulf Coast.
Eriksen: Bulls can 'make a lot of noise nationally'
USF softball opened preseason practice Monday, with the Bulls' season-opening doubleheader against Maine and Florida Gulf Coast on Feb. 10 now just 24 days away, and coach Ken Eriksen is optimistic about his team's potential for improvement as the Bulls seek to end a run of three seasons without making NCAA regionals.
"They've got a great opportunity to make a lot of noise nationally this year," Eriksen said. "If we get the right bounces, we stay healthy, if we do the little things we do, the scoreboard's going to take care of itself. I don't think I have felt as confident in a group of young women to stay together as a team as I do this group in a long, long time. I think this team ranks up there on paper with all the great programs we've had. The pitching is deeper, the speed is better, the power is better, the personnel all the way down from the top to the bottom of the roster is better. On paper, we look great. We've got to translate that over to the end results." ... Read more
FHSAA looking elsewhere for state softball finals
Two months after USF was awarded negotiating rights to host the state high school softball championships at its new stadium, the Florida High School Athletic Association has ended negotiations with the Bulls and is working to have the tournament return to Clermont for the next two years.
"Negotiations ceased with USF because the school and the FHSAA differed on a few points in the potential contract and it couldn't be worked out," the FHSAA's Seth Polansky wrote in an e-mail Wednesday night. "The Association is currently exploring the option of returning to the National Training Center in Clermont. Talks have been ongoing about a possible return to the venue." ... Read more
Softball ace Ecks returns to USF in business office
Former USF softball pitcher Cristi Ecks, who was Big East Co-Rookie of the Year in 2006 and graduated with a business degree in 2009, has returned to USF as the athletic department's business operations coordinator.
Ecks, who holds USF's records for saves in a season (7) and career (18), took the job at USF after earning Master's degrees in business administration and sport management from UCF's DeVos School of Business.
Ecks returned to softball in 2009 as one of the Big East's best pitchers after a scare in April 2008 that saw her collapse to the ground when her heart stopped beating during a routine practice. Since the Bulls joined the Big East in 2006, she has the lowest career ERA (1.14) and most career strikeouts (548). ... Read more
Eriksen brings U.S. national softball teams to Tampa
USF softball coach Ken Eriksen is moonlighting as the head coach of the U.S. national fast-pitch softball team this year, and that team will be coming to Tampa in two weeks, along with the U.S. junior national team, which features Bulls shortstop Kourtney Salvarola.
Eriksen's team and its junior counterpart will participate in a doubleheader at 6 p.m. on June 25 at Plant City Stadium, with free autograph sessions after the games. Eriksen's national team is preparing for the World Cup of Softball, which is in Oklahoma City on July 21-25. Salvarola and the U.S. junior national team will compete in the Junior Women's World Championship in Cape Town, South Africa from Dec. 8-17.
For more information about the event at Plant City Stadium, go to www.playasa.org.
USF wins right to host FHSAA softball finals
The excitement around USF's new softball stadium has helped the Bulls gain the right to host the FHSAA softball championships for the next two years, the Times' Joey Knight reports. USF has a 30-day window to negotiate a contract with the FHSAA after the Bulls were chosen over the National Training Center in Clermont, which has hosted the event for the past two years.
Hall class includes Henry, Dobras and, yes, Hopper
Years before USF actually had an Athletics Hall of Fame, one of the highlights for anyone perusing the wall of USF All-Americans in the main athletic facility was stumbling upon the head shot of soccer standout Fergus Hopper, left. So while there is no shortage of familiar names in the third class for USF's Athletic Hall of Fame -- the first football inductee in defensive back Anthony Henry, basketball's Radenko Dobras, volleyball standout Michelle Collier, current softball assistant Monica Triner -- I'm intrigued to meet Hopper and learn his story.
USF's official site has a good writeup on the new class, announced during Saturday's BullsFest event, so I'll defer to a link to their story. We'll have a lot more on the inductees in advance of their enshrinement this fall.
Cards eliminate USF softball 2-0 in Big East tourney
USF softball's season came to an end Thursday night with a 2-0 loss to Louisville in the opening round of the Big East tournament. The Bulls (33-21) mustered just two hits against the fifth-seeded Cardinals, who advance to play top-seeded Notre Dame in Friday's semifinals.
Head coach Ken Eriksen was suspended from the game as his NCAA-mandated discipline for taking his players off the field Sunday in a game forfeited to DePaul. Assistant coach Stacey Heintz filled in in his place, but the Bulls didn't get their first hit until the fifth inning on an infield single by senior Kelly McCarver. Stormi Gryzbeck added a single in the seventh, putting the tying run at the plate, but the Bulls couldn't continue the rally. Freshman Sara Nevins, named a first-team All-Big East selection on Wednesday, took a shutout into the sixth and pitched a complete game for the hard-luck loss.
With an RPI of 53 entering the game and five losses in its final six games, USF isn't in position to land an at-large berth, so the Bulls will miss playing in NCAA regionals for the third year in a row, the longest such stretch in Eriksen's 15 seasons as head coach.
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