April 19, 2018
By Brian McLaughlin, Student Staff Writer GoPSUsports.com
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Nittany Lions fell in both games of a doubleheader Wednesday night to St. Francis, but despite the outcome the team is looking to take away positives from players that stepped up at Beard Field.
Here are some takeways from the home action.
Player of the Day: Gianna Arrizurieta
Between the two games Penn State's senior starting shortstop went 2-for-4 with a double. After a slow start to the season, Arrizurieta is starting to hit her stride at the plate.
"Gianna really in the past couple weeks is getting better and better. To me it seems like she has hit her stride," Lehotak said. "Poor kid had 'At Em's Disease' where you hit it right at them for the first part of the season. Then you get frustrated so I think she has just relaxed. She is now playing the best ball she's played all year and is playing a great shortstop right now as well. Today she had some hard hit balls at her, like some real rockets that she made some great plays on so that's the beauty of experience right there."
Quick Start
Penn State jumped off to a 1-0 lead in game one after Tori Dubois lead off the first inning with a hit by pitch and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt from Kennedy Legg. Dubois moved to third base on an infield single from Paige Johnson. With two outs in the inning Penn State executed a double steal to perfection, with Johnson taking second and Dubois scoring on the throw.
Scattered Hits
Penn State scattered 11 hits over the two games bringing in three runs to show for it. The Nittany Lions were one hit away from breaking the game open at times but never could find the big play to mount the comeback.
"We didn't have one big hit today and in the first game we really only had one hard hit," Lehotak said "We might've matched their hits on the day but we've got to hit the ball harder. I felt good about our preparation yesterday and today, and I'm not sure what the disconnect is but we're not doing it on game day right now but we need to figure it out."
Outside of Arrizurieta's big day, Kennedy Legg added two hits and a solo home run in game two and Dubois had one hit in each game for Penn State.
The team will look to continue that preparation and translate it to gameday in the coming weeks.
Hackenberg's First Appearance
Tori Hackenberg made her Nittany Lion debut and had quite the cheering section with some of her high school teammates in attendance.
"I'm not totally sure what happened with that, but I heard through the grape vine that maybe her old high school was here," Lehotak said. "Hackenberg's been doing a good job, she was injured for a while and now she's finally healthy so we were just trying to get her at bat's going into the weekend just seeing what she can do since she's missed so much. I didn't put her in there because of her cheering section, I was surprised when I heard it but it was pretty cool to see."
Penn State travels to Indiana this weekend before returning home next Wednesday to take on Bucknell.