The UNM softball team could not take advantage of the home field in the Mountain West Conference Tournament, held May 10-12 at Lobo Field, due mainly to its lack of offensive power and inability to come up with clutch hits.
The Lobos (39-24-1) went 2-2 in the double-elimination tournament and had many chances to win the tournament but could not score enough runs to help their pitching.
UNM had a respectable .269 batting average in the tournament, but scored only 11 runs in the four games. The lack of run support put more pressure on the pitching staff.
“We were trying to get more runs; it just didn’t happen,” designated hitter Kathy Moore said. “We weren’t putting the ball in play and executing like we should have. Just the little things we weren’t doing. We tried to relax, but obviously we didn’t.”
Despite the limited run support, the Lobos pitching responded with a team earned run average of 2.25, thanks to pitcher Amy Dumas, who pitched 28 2/3 of the 31 innings played and kept her team in the games. She was the pitcher of record in all four games and had a 1.38 ERA.
The Lobos’ difficulty coming up with timely hits with runners on second or third base made scoring tougher for UNM. The Lobos hit only .257 with runners in scoring position. The Lobos batters’ struggles were especially evident against stronger opponents.
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UNM’s losses came against the number one-seeded Brigham Young University and third-seeded San Diego State University. In both games, the Lobos hit a measly .200 with runners in scoring position, compared to batting .333 in the Lobos’ two victories.
“It’s all about confidence and I don’t think we played with a lot of confidence at the plate,” UNM head coach Susan Craig said. “We are a doubles-hitting team and we haven’t been doing that. We didn’t drive the hands and were reacting. We’ve been guessing and making bad decisions at the plate.”
UNM also suffered a power outage in the tournament, hitting only five extra base hits, three doubles and two home runs. The Lobos led the conference in doubles and were in the middle of the pack in hitting home runs during the regular season. With no power to earn extra base hits, the Lobos had to string together three of four hits an inning to score runs.
The task was made more difficult because the Lobos’ batters were facing each team’s best pitcher.
“I thought we didn’t come through when we needed to,” Craig said. “Part of that is us and part of that is the pitchers.”
The Lobos who struggled the most at the plate were catcher Tiffani Chambers, who had one hit in 13 attempts, and center fielder Cayley Warner, who batted two-for-13 for a .153 average.
The Lobos’ main offensive threats were right fielder Krissy Keene, who went four-for-12; Moore, who had three hits in nine attempts, including two home runs; and shortstop Marianna Fenelli, who batted four-for-12 for a .333 average.
Even UNM’s two victories did not come very easily, thanks in large part to its offense. In its first game, the Lobos had to get some help from Colorado State University to get the 2-0 win. Both of the Lobos’ runs were unearned because of two Ram errors. Against the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, the Lobos looked to break out of the slump by scoring three runs in the first three innings. However, the Lobos could only manage two hits in the final four innings in the 3-1 victory.
In the Lobos’ two losses, mistakes on offense cost them runs that might have made a difference. In the Lobos’ second game of the tournament against eventual champion BYU, UNM had players on first and third with no outs in the top of the first inning and failed to score a run. The Lobos eventually lost 4-3. In the Lobos’ fourth game, they were eliminated from the tournament by SDSU 4-3 in 10 innings. In that game, the Lobos pounded out 11 hits, but were a woeful one-for-nine with runners in scoring position.
“Sometimes the ball just doesn’t fall, and I think that’s what happened –– the ball didn’t fall,” Keene said. “There’s not one person on this team that doesn’t try hard and have the heart to go out and win every game. It just didn’t happen.”