Damaged dome relegates Black Bears to field house UMaine Southern swing results in 13-14 record

ORONO – The University of Maine softball team got back to practice this week after ending a two-week swing through Florida, which followed a three-day tournament in Tennessee.

The team’s return isn’t exactly what it envisioned. After playing 27 games on grass, the Black Bears are now relegated to the field house after the Mahaney Dome, which has an artificial grass surface, collapsed last weekend due to snow and heavy winds.

Maine is hoping workouts on the rubberized floor in the field house won’t stunt the strides taken by its offense this season.

“There’s only so many ground balls we can take,” sophomore second baseman Ashley Waters said Tuesday after practice. “It’s the little things we have to work on anyway. Flips, angles, cuts, things like that. So it’s working out for us.

The Black Bears came back from the South swing with a 13-14 record. There were good stretches – Maine was second in its bracket at a competitive tournament hosted by Florida State, which is currently ranked No. 20 in the USA Today/NFCA poll. There were rough stretches, too – the Bears dropped six in a row at the end of their trip, scoring four runs in four games during that span.

“The back end of the trip was what it was,” said Bears coach Stacey Sullivan. “We played a couple of Florida-based teams on their home fields … the odds were stacked against us a little. But I was still able to see some bright spots in those games.”

Maine played FSU, recording a 9-1 loss, as well as No. 24 Southern Illinois (an 8-3 loss for Maine) and Wisconsin (a 7-2 loss), which received votes in the poll this week.

The Black Bears are batting .303 as a team – Maine finished the 2006 season with a .255 batting average – with three freshmen in the top six.

“With this offense everyone’s explosive,” said Waters, who leads the team with a .398 batting average and 33 hits. “Kids get in there, they want to hit, they want to run, they want to get on base. That’s the mentality we’ve gone with this year and I think right now we’re optimizing that.”

Left fielder Alexis Souhlaris leads the freshmen with a .390 average, 12 RBIs and a .413 on-base percentage. Designated hitter-catcher Whitney Spangler, who is second in the lineup, has a .377 batting average, a .461 on-base percentage and six stolen bases. Erin Iandoli, the right fielder, is hitting .277 with 12 RBIs and six stolen bases.

The most remarkable of Souhlaris’ numbers has been her 19 stolen bases, which is just four away from tying Maine’s single-season record held by Jackman native Jess Brady (2003 and 2005).

Souhlaris is batting fifth in the lineup, which has taken some adjusting for a speedster used to the one or two spot in the order.

“It’s kind of surprising to me, but it’s working out well,” she said. “Batting fifth is different, but I like it. Teams play back a lot so I can drop a bunt down the corner and get on base safely.”

While the freshmen have been the top-hitting group as a whole, seniors Tara Vilardo, the leadoff batter and outfielder, and first baseman Kristie Hawkins also got off to hot starts. Hawkins is batting .330 with 14 RBIs while Vilardo is batting .282 to go with six stolen bases and a team-high five doubles.

While the Bears’ hitting has improved, the defense fell off a bit, particularly at the beginning of the season. Maine has a .939 fielding percentage (50 errors), although the Bears were error-free in losses to Wisconsin and Stetson at the end of the trip.

The Bears’ pitching has also been a bit inconsistent as America East’s 2006 Rookie of the Year Jenna Balent (5-7) struggled with a 4.72 earned run average in 12 starts. But that’s where the freshmen again have come in as Jessica Ghazali and Christine McGiveny have combined to go 8-7 and Ghazali leads the staff with a 4.51 ERA.

“JB’s a workhorse for us, and she’s trying to lead a very young pitching staff,” Sullivan said.