Softball Opens Season at Campbell on Friday
2/6/2014 12:00:00 AM | Softball
Feb. 6, 2014
The Seton Hall University softball team opens up its 2014 season with four games at the Campbell University Hampton Inn Stampede Tournament, to be held Friday-Sunday, Feb. 7-9, in Buies Creek, N.C. The Pirates face IPFW in the season opener on Friday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. On Saturday SHU takes on tournament host Campbell and Valparaiso, before wrapping up tournament action against UMass Lowell on Sunday morning.
HISTORY LESSON
• For the second-straight season Seton Hall opens competition at Campbell University. The Pirates went 2-2 last year at the Stampede Tournament.
• Seton Hall willl be playing a pair of teams for the first time in program history in IPFW and UMass Lowell.
• Campbell leads the all-time series with Seton Hall 2-1 and won last year's meeting at the Hampton Inn Stampede Tournament, 7-6 in eight innings.
• The Pirates won their only meeting with Valparaiso, 3-0, back in 1991.
LAST TIME OUT
Seton Hall went 21-30 last season and was 8-13 in the BIG EAST Conference. The Pirates had three student-athletes earn All-Conference accolades, including a pair of returners in senior infielder Maria DeLuca and junior pitcher Danielle DeStaso. Deuca ranked second on the team last year with a .344 average, while DeStaso won 14 games with 163 strikeouts, also blasting nine home runs and slugging .551. Overall Seton Hall welcomes back 15 letterwinners, five positional starters and three pitchers for the 2014 season.
SCOUTING THE TOURNAMENT FIELD
IPFW (First meeting)
IPFW qualified for the 2013 NCAA TOurnament as the Summit League Tournament champions. The Mastodons posted a 34-16 overall record and return 14 of 15 letterwinners for the 2014 season. First-Team All-Summit League selection Ashleigh Bousquet returns after hitting .407 with 15 doubles and nine home runs last year, as does starting pitcher Miranda Kramer, who went 23-10 with a 1.88 ERA.
CAMPBELL (Campbell leads the al-time series, 2-1)
Campbell has been selected to finish second in the Big South Conference. The Camels went 39-21 overall and 18-6 in the Big South in 2013, finishing second in the conference regular season standings. Campbell returns eight starters from last year's team, including Big South Freshman of the Year catcher Courtney Klingler.
VALPARAISO (SHU leads all-time series, 1-0)
Pitcher Taylor Weissenhofer leads Valparaiso into the 2014 season. The sophomore was a Second-Team All-League honoree in 2013 when she set a school record for strikeouts. Overall the Crusaders were 35-27, winning the Horizon League Championship to advance to the NCAA Tournament.
UMASS LOWELL (First meeting)
UMass Lowell begins its first season as a Division I program as a member of the America East Conference. The River Hawks return 11 members of last year's team that posted a 26-21-1 overall record and a 15-5-1 mark in the Northeast-10 Conference.
CAMPBELL CONNECTION
The Pirates open the season at Campbell University for a second-straight season and it is a locale where head coach Paige Smith has some familiarity; she is a 2003 graduate of Campbell. Smith played for Campbell from 2002-03, where she started 100 out of 112 games.
STAMPEDE RECAP
Seton Hall posted a 2-2 record at the Campbell University Stampede Tournament last season, beating St. Bonaventure and Robert Morris while falling to George Washington and Campbell. The tournament finale with the host Camels resulted in a 7-6 loss in eight innings.
SIGNIFICANT STRIDES
The Seton Hall softball team greatly outperformed its preseason expectations in 2013 as the Pirates finished the season with a 21-30 record and an 8-13 mark in BIG EAST play. Seton Hall, which was picked to finish 12th in last year's preseason coaches poll ended up eighth in the league and qualified for the BIG EAST Tournament for the first time since 2009.
ALL-BIG EAST HONOREES
The Pirates welcome back a pair of players that received Second-Team All-BIG EAST accolades last season in senior infielder Maria DeLuca and junior pitcher Danielle DeStaso; both received conference postseason recognition for the first time in their careers. DeLuca ranked second on the team last season with a .344 average, hitting eight doubles with 39 RBI. DeStaso logged a team-high 173 innings at pitcher, striking out 163 batters, and boasted some of the best power hitting numbers on the team with nine home runs, 37 RBI and a .551 slugging percentage.
SWING AND A MISS
Junior right hander Danielle DeStaso led Seton Hall with 163 strikeouts last season, which ranks as the fifth-highest single season total in program history. DeStaso currently ranks sixth all-time at Seton Hall with 288 strikeouts, and she needs just eight more to take sole possesion of the fifth position on the list.
SPEEDY SOPHOMORE
Sophomore outfielder Yasmin Harrell enjoyed one of the most impressive base running campaigns in the country last season and it was definitely the best performance for a Pirate in program history. Harrell stole a school record 31 bases in 35 attempts last year, and finished the season ranked No. 18 in the nation in stolen bases per game. She also led Seton Hall with a .357 batting average and scored 35 runs. Harrell posted a 14-game hitting streak during the season, which also set a school record.
EMERGING BAT
One of the players making the biggest stride at the plate in 2013 was junior outfielder Sara Haefeli. In addition to possessing the strongest arm in the outfield, Haefeli saw her batting average jump 139 points up to .239 from her freshman to sophomore season and she hit six home runs with six doubles while making 47 starts.
CLOSING STRONG
Senior pitcher Jen Metzger emerged as the Pirates' go-to option on the mound late in 2013 when she was playing her best ball of the year. Over her last seven starts of the season Metzger posted a 3.61 earned run average, picking up a win in the regular season finale at Georgetown and holding Notre Dame to just five hits in the first round of the BIG EAST Tournament.
