Like many college teams in the northern part of the country, the Utah softball team has to combat snow and winter conditions for the first part of their season.
Despite having yet to practice outside in Salt Lake City, the Utes have adjusted well to the outdoor play and have started their season with a 7-3 record.
“We’ve been solid so far and it shows that they are a talented group,” coach Amy Hogue said. “They’ve played the game for a long time and haven’t forgotten what it’s like to play outside just because we’ve been inside for a while.”
In its first eight games of the season, Utah only committed seven errors in the field, several of which were throwing errors.
The team admits, however, that the transition wasn’t as seamless as it appears.
“Fielding-wise it’s super hard,” said freshman Whitney Holm, who received her first Mountain West Conference player of the week award this week. “The ball bounces ten times differently inside than it does on the dirt and the lighting is different. Everything is different.”
To help with the adjustment, the Utes have been leaving for tournaments a day early in order to give them time to practice on the dirt before beginning play.
“We’ve been going down to the tournaments early and taking a lot of infield and getting used to the dirt,” Holm said. “It has really helped us a lot.”
For Utah pitchers, adjusting to playing outside has taken more than just an extra day of practice at the tournament site.
After the first weekend of play, the Utes set up a sandbox-like area for the pitchers to practice on to give them a feel for the uneven surfaces they will be dealing with come game time.
The combination of getting experience outside and the sandbox setup has helped the Utah pitchers make improvements since their first weekend.
“I’ve noticed (the trouble transitioning) more this season than before,” said Ashley Smuda, who was named as MWC pitcher of the week for the third time in her career this week. “After this past weekend we’re comfortable and it’s all good on the dirt.”
With the Utes getting more comfortable playing outdoors, they are hoping to continue their four-game winning streak as they travel to Arizona to take part in the Wildcat Invitational this weekend.
Utah will face North Dakota State twice during the weekend and play host Arizona, which is ranked No. 11, three times.
Despite facing one of the top teams in the country, the team hasn’t done anything different in preparation for the matchup and is confident in its pitching, defense and hitting.
“The only thing I’m hoping to do better is make adjustments on good pitchers,” Hogue said of preparing to face Arizona. “We’ve faced other top 20 teams and that’s what we did poorly. We didn’t hit the ball well and we didn’t make adjustments to give ourselves chances.”
The Utes will begin play at 1:30 p.m. on Friday against North Dakota State and tournament play will continue until Sunday.
