We haven’t had much success against Washington in the past, but either way it’s going to take a top performance to get past them .
Yes, but I think I prefer trying to beat Washington for this group of players. I see Florida was sent to Stanford. Florida has outstanding hitting but spotty pitching. Complete opposite of Stanford. We are more balanced but I just didn’t see us scoring many runs against Stanford’s exceptional pitching, which would have put a lot of pressure on our pitching and defense to be near-perfect.
Minnesota plays a style similar to Washington’s. With Washington, you always get good average and power, great defense, but in the past they have always at least one, sometimes two, All-America-caliber pitchers in the circle. This season for the first time in forever, Gabbie Plain is finally gone. Ruby Meylan from Nebraska is very good, has great stuff, but is not in the same discussion yet as Plain or some of their other recent aces who have taken them to OKC.
I was pretty confident Pease could have neutralized Stanford’s hitters; I’m not so sure she can do that as effectively to Washington, so similar to our games against Indiana, we simply need to go into this regional with the mindset that no matter who we are playing, we are going to need to score to win. Washington relies a lot on Baylee Klingler offensively to deliver the big hit for them, but as always, they have plenty of talent.
As in any four-team, double-elimination format, getting to two wins first is paramount. To do that, you must win Game 1. McNeese is capable of winning games against top competition (they beat Washington and LSU) but they lack the consistency to do it frequently (they have an overall 7-12 record against the Top 100 RPI. They rely primarily on pitching, defense (#1 in double plays per game nationally), and team speed. They have almost no power. Their RPI (38) is on the high side high for a 3-seed, so they can’t be taken lightly in a single game, even if they are unlikely to be able to string enough solid performances together to win the regional.