Fresno State softball swept Colorado State this past weekend.
In its first sweep of the season, the Bulldogs’ offense outscored Colorado State, clinching 6-4, 4-3 and 6-3 wins. Head coach Stacy May-Johnson noted that the team’s strength in defense has been present for a while.
“We’ve had a big uptick on offense. The pitching and defense have been settled for a while but we’ve had a big uptick in offense recently,” she said. “It hasn’t always been one off. It’s been fairly consistent and I think our run production is going to continue to improve.”
In the first game of the series, the Bulldogs allowed the Rams to score three runs in the first inning, but quickly fixed their pitching for the rest of the game. The Rams could plate only one more run for the rest of the game.
“We’re always looking to play solid defense. We struggled with that early on, so that’s been a big point of emphasis. We weren’t too happy about the ball that got by center field and then the ball that got dropped at first base. We have to clean up those mistakes, because you don’t always walk away with a win with mistakes like that,” May-Johnson said.
May-Johnson praised Marley Hanlon’s performance from the circle in the first game, and said her strikes and outs made the top of each inning quick.
“I think it really came up to Marley Hanlon coming in. She came in, threw strikes, made outs and got a lot of weak contact,” she said.
The Bulldogs Mountain West (MW) record is 8-10, and overall record 16-30. May-Johnson said the team has improved significantly since the beginning of the season, but these past couple games have really highlighted them.
“I’ve been telling people that we’ve been improving for a really long time. In the Mountain West season, we’ve had some wins to show for it. We had a little bump in the road down in New Mexico, but really overall for the last few weeks we’ve been playing a lot better. And we’re looking to continue to improve. We’re not satisfied with where we’re at,” she said.
The Bulldogs travel on April 30 to take on the University of Arizona. The game is to start at 3 p.m.
