May 2, 2001

Ivy Champs Head to Binghamton

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Although the focus seems to be on this weekend, the softball team (31-16, 11-3 Ivy) has one more obstacle to overcome before it heads to Boston to battle Harvard for the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Cornell’s SUNY neighbor, Binghamton (12-24), will be traveling to Ithaca for a game slated for 3 p.m. today at Neiman-Robison field.

Today’s game is especially significant for the seniors because it is their last home game. Senior Kelli Larsen admitted the importance of the day saying, “It should be pretty emotional.”

A tribute to the seniors will take place at the game.

Binghamton comes into the game after dropping two contests to Canisus on Friday. Previous to those games against the Griffs, the Bearcats defeated Albany twice, 3-2 and 3-1 respectively.

Leading the way for the Bearcats is freshman Jessica Chellis, who has posted a .293 batting average while starting all of the team’s 36 games. Chellis leads the team in virtually every offensive category including slugging percentage, on base percentage, and hits with 34. Second on the statistics list behind Chellis is sophomore Jen Richardson. Also starting in all 36 games, Richardson has recorded a .259 batting average.

Fresh off of a winning performance at Albany in which the Red handled some strong pitching to sweep the Great Danes, the team is ready for tomorrow.

“We feel pretty good,” mentioned Larsen. “We did a lot of hitting and a nice round of defense [in practice]. I think we are all going to be playing as hard as we can tomorrow.”

Archived article by Kristen Haunss