Syracuse’s lackluster hitting leads to 2 straight losses to Louisville in doubleheader

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With one out in the bottom of the fourth inning, and Syracuse still without a hit, Madelyn Lopez stepped up to the plate. After working the count even at one apiece, Lopez smoked the third pitch of the at-bat down the right field line.

The ball traveled to the wall, allowing Lopez to round second base and slide into third for the Orange’s first triple of the season and its first hit of the day against Louisville.

With one out and Lopez on third, Kelly Breen stepped up to the plate looking to drive in Syracuse’s first run of the day. On a 2-2 count, Breen hit a ground ball down the first base line right to first baseman Hannah File.

From third base, Lopez ran on contact, and she was easily thrown out at the plate. The Orange was able to get runners on first and second base with two outs later in the inning, but an Olivia Pess groundout ended the inning and Syracuse remained scoreless.

“All day it seemed we were inconsistent with (being aggressive at the plate),” Lopez said.

With its lack of hitting, Syracuse (10-17-1, 1-9-1 Atlantic Coast) struggled against Louisville (24-10, 9-2 ACC) losing the first game of a doubleheader 5-3 and the second game 8-0. Across both games, Syracuse accumulated seven hits with only one going for extra bases – a continued theme throughout Syracuse’s season.

Taylor Roby was cruising on the hill. Her offense gave her an early two-run lead and she retired the first seven Syracuse hitters that came to the plate. However, with one out in the bottom of the third inning, Roby lost control of her command.

Laila Alves worked a four pitch walk and none of Roby’s pitches were close to the plate. Alves became the Orange’s first baserunner of the game, and Rebecca Clyde looked to capitalize.

Roby’s first pitch to Clyde was right down the middle, and Clyde ambushed. Despite hitting the ball hard, Clyde got on top of the ball and hit it on the ground right to Daisy Hess.

Hess quickly fed the ball to Easton Lotus at second base to turn a tailormade 6-4-3 double play putting an abrupt end to Syracuse’s first offensive threat.

In the fifth inning, the Cardinals doubled its lead to 4-0 after a solo homer by Roby and an RBI single from Lotus, but the Orange responded in the bottom half of the inning on a broken play.

With runners on second and third base and two outs, Clyde stepped into the batter’s box and chopped a ground ball into center field. Both SU base runners came across the plate, in part because of an errant throw from the outfield.

Clyde easily advanced to second base as a result and circled the bases after another errant throw from the Cardinals. With a bit of help from Louisville, Syracuse now only trailed by one run.

Because of an error in the top half of the inning, SU was down by two runs in the bottom of the seventh needing to get a rally going to either tie the game or hit a walk off. Leading off the inning, Tessa Galipeau smoked an opposite field line drive into left field to bring the tying run to the plate with no outs.

However, as if it was deja vu of the third inning, the ensuing batter, Trinity Nichols, swung at Roby’s first delivery.

Just as Clyde did, Nichols sent a tailor made double play to Hess and the Cardinals turned another 6-4-3 double play for two huge outs. This derailed any hopes of the Orange mounting a comeback and the ensuing batter, Alves, fouled out to end the game.

In game two, Syracuse got off to a similarly slow start at the plate to the first game. Instead of recording seven straight outs, though, Lopez led off the bottom of the first inning by reaching on a dropped fly ball.

After that, however, Alyssa Zabala retired seven straight SU hitters until Clyde worked a one out walk in the bottom of the third inning.

Even with the lineup flipping to the top of the order, Syracuse couldn’t capitalize after Lopez and Taylor Posner were retired keeping SU out of the hit column through three innings.

With two outs in the bottom of the fourth inning, the Orange finally recorded its first hit of the game when Galipeau hit a single, but she was immediately stranded when Madison Knight grounded out to end the inning.

After Louisville exploded for four runs in the top of the sixth inning thanks to a grand slam from Roby, her third homer of the day, the game was suddenly out of reach for SU.

Needing to score a run in the bottom of the sixth inning to avoid getting mercy-ruled, Syracuse was only able to get one runner on base via a walk, but otherwise, it was retired easily to end the game.

Syracuse head coach Shannon Doepking said her team was “terrible” at the plate, and that it struggled with timing.