Oregon State Softball Report: Beavs Off To Hot Start

Lost in the recent excitement on civil war victories on the court and dominance on the baseball diamond is an OSU softball team that has been taking care of business on their diamond. Laura Berg’s squad has jumped out to a 12-2 record (including a program tying best start of 8-0) with two weeks to go before Pac-12 play begins.

The Beavs raced out to a 5-0 start with a dominant performance in the Kajikawa Classic in Tempe, and reeled of 3 wins in Long Beach before finally picking up a pair of losses. This weekend they have rebounded with 4 wins in Stockton including today’s 8-0 drubbing of Pacific.

So far the team has been lead offensively by a trio of underclassmen. Freshman shortstop Maia Rader leads the squad with a .417 batting average. Fellow freshman 1B Frankie Hammoude, who shall from hence forth be called Frankie the Hammer, has the team lead with 7 home runs, 21 RBI’s and an OPS of 1.487. Sophomore 3B Missy Nunes is second on the team with an OPS of 1.091. This isn’t to say the team hasn’t gotten solid contributions from it’s upperclassmen as well with senior outfields Shelby Weeks, Jessica Garcia and Lovie Lopez all making some noise at the plate.

Senior Meehra Nelson(1.88), junior Nerissa Eason(0.72), and sophomore Mariah Mazon(1.20) have a combined ERA of just 1.37 while racking up 108 strikeouts to just 34 walks.

The competition looks to get tougher as the Beavs will travel to Norman, Oklahoma next weekend for two games against 11th ranked Louisana as well as two against perennial powerhouse and 4th ranked Oklahoma. Following the Oklahoma trip the Beavs will have one more tournament in LA before starting pac-12 play at ASU on March 15th. The first home game of the season will be March 22nd against Arizona.