Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Reigning Champs Primed to Win Another Big East Tourney

By Darius Joshua 

The Syracuse University Softball team (41-11, 15-5 Big East) finished up its remarkable season against the Louisville Cardinals on Sunday and are now ready for the Big East Tournament. 

Beating the Cardinals capped off the team’s best ever win streak of 11 straight games and helped solidify its best ever regular season with 41 wins. This season has been all about setting records for the softball team. The Orange was ranked nationally for the first time in program history in March. Syracuse also set records for biggest margin of victory (23-0), most runs in a contest (23), and most hits (19) all against Rutgers on March 26. 

The Orange won the Big East tournament last year by beating Louisville in the finals 2-1 and went onto the NCAA tournament. The team lost to Oklahoma 10-0 and then went on to lose to Maryland 4-1. 

The Orange are ranked third in the Big East Tournament behind the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the DePaul Blue Demons, respectively. The tournament starts Thursday, May 12th and ends on May 14th. Syracuse kicks off its tournament against the Pittsburgh Panthers (34-16, 13-8 Big East) at 10 a.m. on Thursday. The last time these two teams met was last season. They split a double header with the Orange taking game one, 8-0 and the Panthers taking game two, 4-0. The all-time series between the teams is 12-8 in favor of Syracuse. 

The winner of this game will face the winner of the game between the Blue Demons and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights on Friday.

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