ALFRED, NY –- The Alfred University softball team will travel to Tiffin, OH, to take on Heidelberg University in the Super Regional round of the NCAA Division III championship tournament.
The Saxons (38-4) advanced to the Super Regionals after winning the AU-hosted regional tournament last weekend. AU will take on host Heidelberg, which won the SUNY Cortland regional, in the Friday and Saturday (May 15-16) best-of-three Super Regional. The first game will be played on Friday at 4 p.m., with Game 2 set for Saturday at 1 p.m. If a third game is needed, it will be played Saturday at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, May 17, has been reserved as a makeup date.
Alfred, ranked 15
th in the most recent National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Division III poll, won its regional by defeating third-seeded Lebanon Valley (4-3) in the opening game Friday; top-seeded Rowan (1-0) in the winner's bracket game Saturday; and Rowan again (8-0, five innings) in Sunday's championship game. AU earned an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament by winning the Empire 8 Conference championship. Alfred's 38 wins this year are a new school single-season record.
The Saxons are batting .371 as a team and have outscored their opponents, 319-117. Sophomore first baseman
Sophia Chiavatti (Tustin, CA/Foothill) leads the team in batting with a .489 average and has driven in 23 runs. Among Chiavatti's 44 hits are 24 doubles, a school single-season record. Sophomore third baseman
Liz Thompson (Horseheads, NY/Horseheads), the Empire 8 Conference Player of the Year, is hitting .481 and leads the team in runs (school-record 55), hits (64) and steals (20). Her 43 RBI, 12 homeruns and .925 slugging percentage all rank second on the team.
Senior utility
Alison Wickwire (Towanda, PA/Towanda) earned Most Outstanding Player honors for the regional after earning two pitching wins and driving in the lone run in the 1-0 win over Rowan. She is hitting .406 and leads the team in RBI (53), slugging (.953) and homeruns (school-record 16). Junior catcher
Jasmine Picini (Alexandria, VA/West Potomac) (.352) has five homeruns and 35 RBI; junior outfielder
Samantha Jauregui (Lindsay, CA/Lindsay) (.348) has scored 36 runs; and junior shortstop
Nicole Maher (Newark, DE/Caravel Academy) (.345) has scored 19 runs and driven in 38.
AU pitchers sport a combined 2.34 earned run average. Freshman
Kerri Keeler (Jamesville, NY/Jamesville-DeWitt), the Most Outstanding Player of the Empire 8 championship tournament, is 16-0 with five shutouts, a team-low 1.55 ERA, and 66 strikeouts. Wickwire is 12-3 with a 3.04 ERA and team-best 105 strikeouts; and freshman
Shannon Schaefer (Westfield, NJ/Westfield) is 6-0 with a 1.83 ERA and three saves.
Heidelberg (33-8), the second seed in the Cortland regional, won that tournament by beating third-seeded Neumann (6-4) in the opening game; top-seeded Cortland (8-0, five innings) in the winner's bracket game Saturday; and fourth-seeded DeSales (5-2) in the title game Sunday. Heidelberg, which won the Ohio Athletic Conference championship and the league's automatic bid to the NCAA championships, will enter Super Regional play with a 33-8 overall record. The Student Princes received three votes in last week's NFCA Division III poll.
Heidelberg is hitting .368 as a team and has outscored its opponents. Junior catcher
Mikaela Mitsch leads the team in hitting (.461) and RBI (46) and has 26 runs and seven homeruns. Junior first baseman
Marissa Smego is hitting .457 with a team-best 64 hits and has scored 34 runs and driven in 41.
Sophomore outfielder
Taylor Hicks (.405) has scored a team-high 49 runs; freshman second baseman
Renee Lovett (.446) has 22 runs and 18 RBI; junior shortstop
Kayla Zachrich (.402) has 35 runs and 39 RBI; and freshman
Abby McKee (.389) has 34 RBI and a team-best nine homeruns.
The Heidelberg pitching staff has a combined 3.34 earned run average. Junior
Paige Atterholt is 18-3 with a 2.88 ERA and team-best 64 strikeouts; freshman
Cori Long has appeared in 17 games (12 in relief) and is 9-3 with a 3.60 ERA; and sophomore
Erin Chapman is 4-0 with a 4.38 earned run average.
Both teams play solid defense, with Alfred boasting a .966 fielding percentage and Heidelberg right behind at a .962 clip.
This weekend's games will be the first-ever meetings between AU and Heidelberg, which have played one common opponent this season: Baldwin-Wallace College. AU played the Yellow Jackets twice on the Saxons' Spring Break trip to Arizona, losing 9-8 on March 9 before bouncing back the next day with an 8-0 five-inning win. Heidelberg swept Baldwin-Wallace in a conference doubleheader on April 1, winning by scores of 4-2 and, 6-1.
The winners of the eight Super Regionals will move on to play in the Division III College World Series, May 21-26 in Salem, VA.