Red Games Against St. Bonaventure Cancelled

After a New England road trip that yielded mixed results for the softball team, the Red (27-7, 6-2 Ivy) travels to Olean, N.Y., this afternoon to take on St. Bonaventure University (4-18) in non-conference play. That is, they would have, had Mother Nature not had other plans.
“I spoke with the head coach of St. Bonaventure, and they’re anticipating 4-8 inches of snow, so my first concern is whether or not we can get the game in,” said head coach Dick Blood.[img_assist|nid=36630|title=Incoming|desc=Senior Jessy Berkey slides to safety. Berkey warned that the Red should not underestimate St. Bonaventure.|link=node|align=left|width=|height=0]
In fact, the game was cancelled, to be rescheduled for a later date. Regardless of the day, however, Cornell is primed to eventually take the field and is anticipating a hard-fought matchup against its in-state rival. St. Bonaventure is coming off back-to-back losses in its home-opener doubleheader against Dayton, in which the Bonnies were outscored by a combined 15-2. Nevertheless, the Red refuses to underestimate its opponent to the west.
“It’s a non-conference game, but that doesn’t mean it should be taken any more lightly,” said senior outfielder Jessy Berkey. “[St. Bonaventure] has given us a run for our money the last two years … They’ve taken a few games from us … they’re a pretty talented team with good pitching and a few pretty good hitters.”
Blood echoed this sentiment. “They have a very solid pitching staff that will challenge us and prepare us for the UPenn doubleheaders.”
When asked to identify the biggest threat posed by St. Bonaventure’s team, Blood singled out junior Sherri Thompson, who he described as a “down ball, or a drop ball, pitcher with great movement.”
“We’ve had difficulty hitting her in the past,” he said.
Lauren Marx was slated to pitch Game 1; the freshman is 5-1 in 13 appearances and boasts a 0.66 ERA. According to Blood, sophomores Elizabeth Dalrymple and Ali Tomlinson were prepared share the second game. The teammates currently lead the Red in wins, with 11 and 10, respectively.
Cornell returns to the field after splitting both its doubleheaders with Harvard and Dartmouth over the weekend –– both losses coming by two runs or less.
“We played some pretty tough ball games against some pretty tough teams, and one team’s going to have to come up short,” Berkey said.
Going into the contests, Blood hopes that his squad will be more aggressive at the plate.
“We were very selective over the weekend,” he said, “and that’s not our best path to success.”
“We’d like to come away with two wins,” Berkey added.“If we can get our bats hot, and our pitching stays consistent, we should come away with two victories that would definitely give us great momentum going into the weekend against Penn.”