Taylor McGillis, Online Editor
The Saint Leo University Lions softball team has been swept in two consecutive conference series. The Lions got swept in a three-game series by Nova Southeastern University and followed it up over Easter weekend by getting swept by Florida Tech at home. The losses move the Lions’ record to 17-28 on the year and 2-13 in Sunshine State Conference play. The Lions lost 3-2 and 5-1 on Thursday night and got beat 10-2 on Friday making it their eighth loss in a row.
“The weekend was disappointing”, said head coach John Conway after the Lions’ pair of losses to Nova Southeastern on April 1. “We didn’t come out to play this weekend. Nova came in and made good plays, made pitches when they needed to, and had good hits and timely hits. We didn’t have a good approach at the plate today and our pitchers didn’t make good pitches when they needed to. That was the biggest difference, they made all their plays and we struggled today.”
It has truly been a choppy and unpredictable season for the Lions who have seen moments of brilliance and moments of shakiness. Conway’s squad started the year 12-6 with wins over No. 2 North Georgia and No. 25 Flagler but has since spiraled out of control. The Lions have now lost 14 of their last 15 and are in eighth place in the conference with 11 games remaining on the schedule.
On the up and down season senior third baseman Danielle Moreda provided some thoughts. “We have had a tough schedule and faced some really good competition and we were able to have some success against some of those teams (beating two top 25 teams). Lately, we have just been making too many errors and not hitting the way that we are capable of and the way that we were at the beginning of the season when we were winning games. But we seem to be getting back on track with both of those things and we’re looking to end the season on a strong note with as many wins as we can.”
It will be a difficult final stretch of games for the team with nine of their last 11 being against SSC competition. However, two of the three remaining conference series are against Eckerd and Lynn, two of the weaker teams in the conference this year.
The team will play its next six games on the road with three this weekend at Rollins followed up with three games at Eckerd the following week.
