Softball Struggling In Conference

Lyndon State Softball is currently hanging toward the bottom of the North Atlantic Conference standings, now in eighth place out of nine teams.

Six straight losses to NAC opponents has given the Lady Hornets a conference record of 1-11. In these games, which were double-headers against Husson, Maine-Maritime, and at Thomas, the team was outscored by a wide margin of 53-6. That means that the Lady Hornets have averaged exactly one run over the last six games.

Junior left fielder Autumn Thompson thinks that the team built off the beatings that it suffered against Husson and Maine-Maritime.

"Everybody got tired toward the end of the week, but we ended up using the experience from the losses we had against Husson and Maritime especially to throw everything together and actually make our bats come alive and everything come together on the field," Thompson said.

Certainly, the Lady Hornets had better outings against Thomas, scoring five runs in two games. It is these performances that make Thompson excited as the team looks ahead.

"The fact that we did well yesterday gives us positive feelings about the games to come and hopefully motivation to get us through the first round of the playoffs," Thompson said.

The Lady Hornets are set to play two more double-headers, which will be the final four games of the regular season. One is at Castleton, starting at 3:30 p.m. Friday. The other double-header has the Lady Hornets hosting Green Mountain on Saturday, starting at 1:00 p.m. These opponents could not any more different, as Castleton ranks first in the NAC with an 11-1 conference record, and Green Mountain dead last with a 0-12 conference record.

Thompson believes that the Lady Hornets need to keep the same approach against Castleton.

"Castleton's a tough team, but we need to look at it not as if we're playing a tough team but as we're going into it fresh," Thompson said.  "Even though we may have pre-conceiving notions about how well we're going to do, we need to just focus on the fact that they are just another team and we can beat them even if they have a really good record."

On the other hand, Thompson does not want the team to get too cocky about playing the hapless Green Mountain Eagles

"With Green Mountain, even though they're not doing so well, we can't go into it thinking that we're going to win because we could very well get beat if we're not into the game," Thompson said.