Softball defeats USF 6-0, advances to Big East semi

SOUTH BEND, Ind. --- There is one thing that Eugene Lenti has consistently preached all season.

“Hitting is contagious.”

Whether good or bad hitting, the DePaul head softball coach sticks to those three words. On Thursday afternoon, he saw what the good contagious hitting leads to as the fifth-seeded Blue Demons defeated the fourth-seed USF Bulls 6-0 in the quarterfinal round of the Big East Tournament in what only counts as an upset because of the seeds.

This game was highly anticipated because of the last time these two teams met. On DePaul’s senior day in 2011, the Bulls players and coaches walked off the field under protest and forfeited the game. Though Lenti said that everything was fine now and he and USF coach Ken Eriksen exchanged pleasantries before the game, the team remembered.

“We were fired up coming into it because we haven’t played them in a while,” senior second baseman Lynsey Ciezki said. “USF is always a good game.”

Ciezki started the scoring for DePaul in the fifth inning with a single, driving in Paige Peterson, who doubled to right field.

But that was only the beginning of a six-run inning that put the game out of reach. Ciezki finished 1-for-2 with a run scored and an RBI.

“Anytime you can get us started the way Paige got us started, that’s a big thing,” Lenti said about Peterson’s double to lead off the fifth inning. “We just kind of went off of her momentum.”

The pitching matchup of Kirsten Verdun against USF’s Sara Nevins proved to be the pitchers’ duel that was expected through the first four innings, with neither pitcher allowing a hit until DePaul’s Katelyn Braget singled to right field in the top of the fourth.

Nevins, despite not allowing a hit early on, struggled to find the strike zone and had the help of the umpire on the outside corner. By the time she gave up her first hit, she had already walked two batters and hit one Blue Demon.

“She was playing around a little bit,” Ciezki said about Nevins struggling to find the plate. “The umpire was calling the outside pitch, so I knew I had to expand my strike zone.”

Verdun, meanwhile, was in command for the entire game with the exception of a few small hiccups. The unanimously voted All-Big East first-team player pitched a complete game shutout, striking out five, giving up two hits and not walking a single USF batter. The only base runner DePaul allowed in the first three innings was off of an Allie Braden error.

“She’s such a bulldog, she always has our back,” Ciezki said about the do-everything Verdun. “We know if we can get her one run, she’ll shut the other team down. We want to score as many runs as we can to take the pressure off of her.”

After Peterson scored and Verdun reached on a fielder’s choice to load the bases, freshman and All-Big East third-team selection Mary Connolly came to the plate and knocked in Ciezki and Samantha Dodd to tack two more runs on the board. Then with Verdun on third and Staci Bonezek pinch-running for Connolly, Braget singled right up the middle to drive both runners in. Braget scored on a wild pitch to compete the scoring, more than enough for the Blue Demons on Thursday.

“It was awesome, especially being a senior,” Ciezki admitted. “USF was going to be hard, they had great pitching coming in. It was awesome to score six runs off of them.”

Up next for the Blue Demons is a semifinal date with the winner of Louisville and Connecticut. DePaul had a combined 3-2 record against the two teams in the regular season. Louisville lost only three games the entire season, two of which were conference losses. Both of those were at the hands of the Blue Demons.

Before they get ready for their next opponent, Ciezki was asked if she heard the USF fans cheering and screaming loudly down near the field. None of it was too favorable to DePaul, but she silenced them the best way possible.

“You have to block them out, it is what it is,” Ciezki said. “Maybe they’re a little quieter now that we won.”