Pitching and defense.
Those are the two areas that Creighton University head softball coach Brent Vigness has emphasized to his players this fall as the team tries to improve before the spring season.
“We issued too many free passes last year from our pitching staff, and that’s a focus of ours, to really attack opposing hitters,” Vigness said.
In 54 games last year, the Bluejay pitching staff surrendered 204 walks, or an average of nearly four walks per game. Although the pitching staff had a combined earned run average of 3.66, giving out those free passes to opposing hitters put additional pressure on the Bluejay defense that could have been avoided.
“Defensively we didn’t handle the ball quite as well as we needed to last year either,”
Vigness said.
The Bluejays committed a total of 61 errors last season, up from 54 errors in 2011.
With seven new freshmen joining the program, it will be important to limit mistakes and stay true to fundamentals. Vigness said the freshmen are adjusting well, and the hardest part for them is to try and work on fundamentals while at the same time keep up with the tempo of practice.
“I’m sure they’re feeling a little bit overwhelmed at times, but they’re picking some things up,” Vigness said.
Teams in the Missouri Valley Conference already know that the Bluejays are a force to be reckoned with in the batter’s box. Vigness said he was pleased with how the Bluejays hit last season, saying that there were “good numbers offensively across the board.”
The Bluejays did have a very good year on offense, outscoring their opponents 294-233 with a team average of .292. In fact, the Bluejays return the three top hitters from last year: junior outfielder Ellen Homan, junior pitcher Alexis Cantu and senior catcher Amy Baker.
If the Bluejays want to challenge for the top spot in the MVC, they will have to improve against the upper-level teams in the conference. Some of the problems that Vigness addressed directly played an impact in the games played against the league’s top teams. In an April matchup against eventual league-champ University of Northern Iowa, the Bluejays committed a season-high four errors. A season-high number of hits (17) were allowed in matchups against Northern Iowa in April and Southern Illinois University in March.
With the hard work that the players are putting in and the excellent vision that the coaching staff has, this team has the firepower with returning starters in key positions to be a very good team by the time the spring slate of games arrive.