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Fiona Girardot. Credit UW Athletics
The Badger’s home opener came against Big Ten Rival Indiana, and Wisconsin was able to fight off the Hoosiers on Friday afternoon in the first leg of a 7-inning doubleheader by a score of 7-5.
The game could not have started out much worse for the Wisconsin Softball team, as Indiana’s first batter of the game, Cora Bassett, cracked a hit into right field that dropped safely in front of Wisconsin right fielder, Molly Schlosser, who let the ball get passed her and then slipped when going to collect it and allowed Bassett to round the bases and touch home for a 1-0 lead. They parlayed that into two more runs and left the top half of the first inning with a 3-0 advantage.
The Badgers were not going to roll over easily as this was the team’s first home game with fans since May of 2019 before the Coronavirus pandemic. The added pressure did not seem to affect the players on the diamond, as the team stayed calm and clawed their way back into the game through a balanced attack of power and contact hitting. The Badgers got a run back in the bottom of the first on a fielder’s choice groundout from Skylar Sirdashney, and then cut it to one in the bottom of the third on an absolute missile of a home run from Brooke Kuffel that was gone as soon as it made contact with the bat. The game remained close but the Badgers finally took the lead in the bottom of the 5th on a two-run homer from Fiona Girardot and never looked back.
The Badgers finished strong and grabbed a few insurance runs in the 6th inning off of a two-run double from Peyton Bannon that pushed the score to 7-4 and that was enough for Wisconsin to hold on in their return to Goodman Field. The Badgers received defensive help from a complete game from Maddie Schwartz on the mound and solid defense after a sloppy first inning. This effort was led by great infield play, but no one was better than Girardot over at first base who was able to scoop up a number of bounced throws from the rest of the infield that would have granted extra base runners and on a few occasions would have meant extra runs for the Hoosiers.
This was a great team win from the Badgers despite a quiet performance from their star, Kayla Kronwet who was only able to walk once and reach base one other time after a series against Iowa where she was so dominant that she was walked in eight of her last nine at-bats. Wisconsin will hope to continue this momentum into the second game of the doubleheader and games on Friday and Saturday against Indiana to stay ahead of the pack in the Big Ten.
Maddie Schwartz. Credit UW Athletics
Following a ten inning, 1-0 win in a Pitchers duel last night, the Badgers Softball team looked to get the offense going early on Saturday against Penn State. They did just that and gave their ace, Maddie Schwartz some run support after ten scoreless innings on the mound yesterday.
Wisconsin started out hot on offense, as Fiona Giradot went deep on the second at-bat of the game, putting the Badgers up early. It has been tough at times finding offensive production outside of the top of the order this season, but today the bottom of the order was huge in the Badger’s victory. Skylar Sirdashney had two hits and an RBI in the eight-hole, and Lauren Foster put the game out of reach in the top of the fourth inning with a two-run bomb to center field. 2019 Big Ten Player of the year Kayla Konwet also came through with two big RBIs on a second-inning single.
The Badgers got consistent pitching through the first four innings from Maddie Schwartz, then after getting up by eight runs, Tessa Magnanimo came in and coasted to the finish, with the only blemish being a solo home run in the bottom of the fifth from Penn State. Schwartz was coming off of a lights-out performance last night, where she went ten shutout innings and struck out eight while only giving up one hit and walking one. Today she did not have her best strikeout stuff but did what she does best, pitch to weak contact. She faced 14 batters and got eight of those batters to ground out in her four innings of action in the first game of today’s doubleheader. She has been a rock for the Badgers all season on the mound, and after getting the win on the mound today, her record comes to 22-5.
Wisconsin has one more game tomorrow against Penn State, then they go to Minnesota on Wednesday for a midweek doubleheader, before wrapping up the regular season next weekend at home against Michigan and hope to gain some momentum before the Big Ten Tournament in East Lansing starting May 11th.
Kayla Konwent. Credit UW Athletics
The Badger Softball team has been a pleasant surprise in the Big Ten this season after finishing 18-22 overall last year and 9th in the Big Ten. This season they are 20-11 on the season and tied for 5th in the Big Ten with a chance to gain games this upcoming weekend with a three-game series against last-place Michigan St. A slight tweak to the lineup could be helpful in getting the Badgers a clean sweep this weekend.
Kayla Konwent was the Big Ten’s player of the year in 2019 and was on the way to another great season in 2020 before COVID cut the season short. She sat out the entirety of the 2021 season, but is back this season and lighting up opposing pitchers. She is putting up mind-boggling numbers this year, ranking 1st in the Big Ten with an on-base percentage of .560 (56% of the time she comes up to bat, she ends up getting on base whether that be a walk or hit). She also ranks high in slugging percentage (.733), which is batting average that is weighted to incorporate extra-base hits as more important than singles. Adding up these numbers gives you a number known as OPS (On-Base Plus Slugging) which is now the most used stat in modern-day softball and baseball in determining a player’s impact at the plate. Her OPS is third in the Big Ten at 1.302.
This should be enough to tell the story, which is that she is one of the best power hitters in the Big Ten. Yet she is batting leadoff for the Badgers this season, and we are not seeing her at the best place in the lineup. Konwent has hit seven home runs this season, 4 of them have been solo home runs, meaning that no one has been on base for her to drive home with her powerful swing. I understand the sentiment that having your leadoff batter get on base at an elite rate is important, but more important than that is making sure extra-base hits score runners who are on base. In softball, unlike baseball, you can pinch run for a batter and the batter can re-enter the game, so Konwent’s lack of speed on the base path is not an issue at the leadoff spot where traditional baseball teams like to put their speedy players.
However, It is not like the rest of the lineup is slacking this season when it comes to offensive production. The Badgers have five players who are averaging an OPS above the benchmark for a good hitter which is .800. This should mean that the Badgers could slide Konwent back to either third or fourth in the batting order and rely on productive players like Aly Miklesh (OPS 1.021) and Peyton Bannon (OPS .862) to get on base before Konwent comes up to bat and can knock them in with an extra-base hit.
If the Badgers can start to turn Konwent’s solo home runs into multiple-RBI home runs, Wisconsin has a real chance to compete at the top of the Big Ten this season, as they have already shown after taking two out of three in last season’s series against Indiana, who has been surprising this season and sits right ahead of the Badgers at fourth in the Big Ten.
