Trail of Strikes: Senior Kayle Stevenson pitches against Grand Valley dur­ing last week’s game giv­ing away only three hits and help­ing the team toward a final 2–0 tri­umph. Photo By: Kristyn Sonnenberg | Photo Editor

Softball head coach Keri Becker recorded her 400^th career vic­tory on Saturday in a 4–1 vic­tory over Tiffin University.

The Bulldogs won four of six games over the week­end and have won nine of their last 12 games over­all. Ferris improved to 20–13 over­all this sea­son and 11–6 in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The Bulldogs improved to fourth in the con­fer­ence standings.

On Saturday, Ferris lost 4–3 to Tiffin in the first game and won the sec­ond game of the dou­ble­header 4–1. Becker, in her 13^th sea­son with the bull­dogs, is the all-time win­ningest coach in FSU soft­ball his­tory with a career record of 403−250−1.

With the GLIAC Tournament three weeks away, Becker says that she thinks a hand­ful of teams will be all jum­bled up. The top seven teams in the con­fer­ence stand­ings are sep­a­rated by six games or less.

“I think every­body is going to have about the same amount of wins and the same amount of losses,” said Becker. “It’s really going to be a crap­shoot for who’s going to be in the tour­na­ment, which makes it exciting.”

Ferris played six games in three days over the week­end with home dou­ble head­ers against Tiffin and Ashland, fol­lowed by a dou­ble­header at Lake Superior State on Monday. The Bulldogs swept Lake Superior 9–0 and 6–5 after win­ning one game against Ashland and one against Tiffin.

Ferris fresh­man pitcher Dana Bowler threw a three-hit shutout against the Lakers for her sixth vic­tory of the sea­son. The Bulldogs scored six runs in the top of the first inning and Lake Superior was unable to gain any momen­tum the rest of the way.

In the sec­ond game, Ferris senior pitcher Kayle Stevenson earned her ninth vic­tory of the sea­son sur­ren­der­ing nine hits and one earned run. The Bulldogs com­mit­ted five errors and allowed two runs in the top of the sev­enth inning, but held on for the victory.

The Bulldogs showed they could tus­sle with teams in the GLIAC and the region with a 3–1 win over NCAA Division II Midwest Region No. 2-ranked Ashland on Sunday. Ferris allowed five hits and com­mit­ted no errors in the vic­tory. Sophomore first base­man Chelsea Morris hit a two-RBI sin­gle in the fourth, help­ing the Bulldogs get the victory.

“Being able to steal one from Ashland is a good accom­plish­ment because Ashland is a very good team,” said Becker.

Splitting the week­end was not what Becker had in mind, but with a 6–3 loss in the first game of the dou­ble­header, that is all she could hope for. Ashland man­aged to bat in six runs on eight hits and Ferris com­mit­ted three errors in the loss.

“The offense needs to do their job a lit­tle bit bet­ter with a lit­tle bit more timely hit­ting,” said Becker.

Pitching has kept the Bulldogs in games and Becker said she plans to rely on pitch­ing to help the offense through­out the end of the sea­son. Ferris has allowed five or more runs once in its pre­vi­ous nine con­tests. Becker said the pitch­ing has kept the team close most of the sea­son and will rely on the pitch­ing for the rest of the year. n