April 2, 2016
By ANNA PITINGOLO, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- There are seven seniors on the Penn State softball team, and in their time in the blue and white they have never made it to the postseason.
They, along with the rest of the team, are stating their case early as to why this may be their year.
The Nittany Lions swept their second straight Big Ten series when they beat Michigan State 8-6 on Saturday evening. It was Penn State's first back-to-back conference series sweep since 2011, when they beat Ohio State and Northwestern in two two-game series.
Leading the charge has been senior Macy Jones, who has been consistently making big plays on both sides of the ball. Against Michigan State, she went 7-for-10 with six RBIs, including two 2-run home runs in Saturday's contest.
"You never count on the long ball, that expectation can always be dangerous, but it came at the right times," said head coach Amanda Lehotak. "And Macy Jones just continues to be steady Eddie, she's been great all year."
Both of Jones' home runs put the Nittany Lions back in the game after they had been trailing, with the second one giving Penn State a lead it wouldn't relinquish.
On defense, Jones made a diving catch in left field in the third inning to prevent the Spartans from scoring. The ball was falling right in front of Jones who waited it out and dropped to her stomach to make the catch at the last second.
The Lions are on a seven game win streak, their longest such streak since they won 16 in a row back in 2006. With six of those wins coming in conference play, Lehotak says the seniors have been key to that streak.
"They [the seniors] don't feel respected in the Big Ten, so I think them just saying `okay, we're here to do it, we're going to do it and this is how we do it', to me the seniors have really been guiding the ship in these last six games," Lehotak said.
Penn State exploded for 38 hits against Michigan State, with 28 of those hits coming in the first two games. Lehotak and her assistant coach Joe Guthrie were worried that after such a hot night on Friday their team would suffer from an "offensive hangover" and not be able to follow up in game three.
They were pleased to see that not be the case, with Penn State tacking on ten more hits, including three home runs.
"They're level of focus has not wavered. They've been keeping it simple and they haven't got too big," Lehotak said. "Coming into today, Coach [Guthrie] and I were really worried. But really, they're just keeping it simple, they're celebrating what we've done but they're letting it go quickly. What they have done offensively is not easy to do so the fact that they can just keep the game simple, hopefully they can keep that rolling."
The team is looking to extend their win streak as they head to Columbus for a doubleheader on Wednesday against Ohio State.
Lehotak knows that her team believes in themselves and that that is what will carry them to more success in the future.
"They've really come together, and I think they really just made that cognitive choice that they were going to do it this year," Lehotak said. "They believe in one another and you can see in the dugout that they're really just playing for one another. They just believe that they can compete in the Big Ten and they don't want to be stopped."