Softball Opens NCAA Tournament Thursday Versus #16 Fresno State
05/19/2004 | 12:00:00 | Softball
May 19, 2004
By Lou Antoine
www.SIUSalukis.com
PALO ALTO, Calif. - The Southern Illinois University softball team practiced Wednesday afternoon on the campus of Stanford University in preparation for its NCAA Tournament first-round game versus #16 Fresno State at noon CT on Thursday.
The Salukis (42-15) are making their second-straight NCAA Tournament appearance and the third overall in the program's history. As a #6 seed, SIU has its hands full with the #3-seed Bulldogs, who won the Western Athletic Conference championship.
"I have the utmost respect for that program and their coach. Margie Wright (head coach) is one of the greatest coaches ever to coach the game at the collegiate level. They have a great tradition and history," said Kerri Blaylock, SIU head coach.
"We've played them before since I've been here (lost 1-0 & 4-0 in 1999) and we played well against them (lost a no-hitter in the seventh in game one). You just go out and do the best you can. The kids are excited. When tournament time comes around, you just throw out the records out the window and play."
Bulldog head coach Margie Wright is 962-303-1 in her 19th season and 1125-395-3 in 25 seasons overall. Wright has guided her team to the Women's College World Series ten times with one national title, three runnerup finishes, three third-place finishes and three fifth-place finishes. She has a 62-32 postseason record. Wright is the first Division I softball coach to win 1000 games, becoming the all-time winningest softball coach back in 2000.
The Salukis will likely have to deal with Fresno State pitcher Jaime Southern (29-5, 0.41 ERA), an all-american, and a team that hits .276 overall, led by Christina Clark, who's hitting .398 with 22 home runs and 54 RBI.
"They are a strong pitching team with (Jamie) Southern in the circle and offensively we know that Clark and Southern (.342, 8 HR, 33 RBI) are very good hitters. Southern is a tremendous pitcher and was an all-american. She has over a thousand strikeouts in her career and can really thrown the ball," added Blaylock.
"We want to keep it a low scoring game. Amy (Harre) has to keep them down and see what we can do on offense. I really feel we can compete with anybody if we put some zeros on the board early defensively. We need to get back to playing good defense and put that Creighton game behind us."
The Salukis are coming off a tough 5-0 loss to Creighton in the MVC Championship game after committing an uncharacteristic four errors, which contributed to two unearned runs in the first inning. Last year, coming off an 8-0 loss in an MVC Tournament elimination game, the Salukis went 3-2 in the 2003 Region VIII Tournament, before losing to Alabama 2-0 in the championship game.
SIU trails the series with Fresno State 2-0, losing both games at the 1999 Leadoff Classic, when Blaylock was an assistant coach.
In addition to SIU and Fresno State, #8 Stanford (#1 seed, 43-16), #12 Auburn (#2, 42-15), Pacific (#4, 34-21), Southern Mississippi (#5, 32-24), Hofstra (#7, 34-19) and Utah (#8, 23-31) are the remaining teams in the NCAA Region VII Tournament. Should SIU win, the Salukis will face the Hofstra-Auburn winner on Friday at 2:30 p.m.
If Southern Illinois loses, the Dawgs will face the Hofstra-Auburn loser on Thursday at 8 p.m. All Region VII Tournament games will scored live on Gametracker by Stanford at www.gostanford.com or at www.siusalukis.com.