Friday, March 6, 2009
The Jayhawks play their home opener today against North Dakota State University while hosting the KU Invitational tournament this weekend.
In addition to today’s contest, Kansas plays a pair of games on both Saturday and Sunday, facing Northern Iowa and Eastern Illinois on Saturday and North Dakota State and Northern Iowa Sunday. The 7-11 squad faces challenging competition and hopes to get a winning record before beginning Big 12 Conference play on March 21.
Junior shortstop Stevie Cristoso throws to first base for an out after fielding a ground ball. Cristoso hit 1-4 Saturday afternoon in an 8-1 loss against Oklahoma State.
North Dakota State and Eastern Illinois have records of 8-4 while Northern Iowa sits at 10-4. NDSU earned three of its four losses with a combined score of 31-2 against a team the Jayhawks beat, No. 11 Arizona. Eastern Illinois and Northern Iowa are solid teams but so far this season the Jayhawks have shown that they can be a top ranked team when they’re in sync. Kansas will need to put together its hot bats, solid pitching and improving defense in order to come away with a winning record this weekend.
The Jayhawks come off a 1-2 record in last weekend’s North Texas Invite, where they lost their first two games to Harvard and North Texas before securing their only win of the tournament in a 10-1 rout of Harvard. Senior shortstop Stevie Crisosto comes into the KU Invitational with an impressive eight-game hitting streak and has been one of the Jayhawks’ most consistent hitters, batting .306 from the leadoff spot. Third baseman Val Chapple is the backbone of the Kansas offense with a .340 average, and was named to the North Texas all-tournament team.
breakbox
KU INVITATIONAL Arrocha Ballpark
Friday North Dakota State, 3 p.m.
Saturday Northern Iowa, 10 a.m. Eastern Illinois, noon
Sunday North Dakota State, noon Northern Iowa, 4 p.m.
The event is free for students with a KU ID.
In the win over Harvard, Val George garnered her 33rd career victory as a Jayhawk, which put her tenth in school history. With her performance over the weekend, George was able to improve her ERA to 1.83 and her strikeout total to 63, fourth in the Big 12. Kansas hopes to string together some wins this weekend in order to boost confidence and morale before beginning regular season play on March 12 at Missouri State.
Former Kansas softball standout Destiny Frankenstein will make her return to Lawrence as the graduate assistant for the North Dakota State Bison. Frankenstein was a star for the Jayhawks during her four year tenure, 2003-2006, hitting 31 career home runs while having a career slugging percentage of .488, both second-best in school history. After graduating, Frankenstein played for the New England Riptide of the National Pro Fastpitch League before becoming a graduate assistant for the Bison.
— — Edited by Liz Schubauer
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