After opening Mid-American Conference play with a 3-1 record last weekend, the Ball State University softball team will travel to play a doubleheader against Ohio State University today.
The No. 15 Buckeyes (24-6, 3-1) will be the second ranked team and the second Big Ten team the Cardinals (13-14, 3-1) have faced this season. Ball State lost to then-No. 16 University of Georgia 15-3 in the second game of the season. Georgia is currently ranked No. 6 in the nation. Ball State defeated Indiana University 4-1 on March 14 at a tournament in Florida.
In its four conference games last weekend, Ball State swept Eastern Michigan University and split the series with Central Michigan University.
Coach Craig Nicholson said he attributed much of the team's success last weekend to his team's hitting.
"I like the way we swung the bats this weekend," Nicholson said. "We had some lulls a couple of innings here and there but overall we must have had 40 hits in four games. That's progress for sure."
Last year Ball State lost both games against Ohio State. The Cardinals are 5-8 all-time against the Buckeyes.
Nicholson said if Ball State is to pull off the upset it will have to play better than it did in its last weekday road non-conference game against the University of Notre Dame last week. The Cardinals committed four errors in the 5-1 loss.
All three Buckeye pitchers have less than a 2.00 ERA. Kim Reeder has done most of the work for the team and currently has an ERA of 0.94 with 107 strikeouts in 88.2 innings of work.
Nicholson said Elizabeth Milian will get to start in the first game, but will not play in the second so she can rest for this weekend's MAC games against the University at Buffalo (17-10, 0-2) and Kent State University (10-14, 2-0).
This will be Milian's third start and fifth appearance in the last six days. She pitched a total of 22 innings during the weekend.
"For a lot of kids in this conference, 22 are a lot of innings," Nicholson said. "I don't know for her that it's really that much. She's thrown a lot of innings since her freshman year here and she's stronger now than she was as a freshman."
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