Softball Heads To Florida For Rebel Spring Games

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Games 15-24 • March 5-10, 2016 • Rebel Spring Games • Kissimmee, Fla.

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Creighton (6-8, 0-0 BIG EAST) wraps up a stretch of 24 straight road games to open the season with it heads to Kissimmee, Fla., for 10 games in the Rebel Spring Games. Creighton will play five doubleheaders in a stretch of six days between March 5-10, squaring off against seven different clubs in that span. Play begins on Saturday at 8 am Central when the Bluejays face Sacred Heart (1-4).

Follow the Action
Live stats for this week's Rebel Spring Games will be listed on GoCreighton.com for games as links become known. Not every game is expected to have live stats, however.
   Scoring updates and info graphics will be provided via Twitter at @BluejaySoftball.

Scouting Creighton
Creighton Softball posted a 2-2 record at last weekend's North Texas Invitational in Denton, Texas. The Bluejays went 1-1 against both Sam Houston State and North Texas in the event.
   Highlighting Creighton's performances last weekend was Sydnee Eck, who struck out 15 in 15 innings pitched en route to a pair of complete game victories in the circle. For the spring, Eck leads CU with a 5-3 record and 3.64 ERA.
   Allie Reinhart and Jen Daro both had six hits to pace the Bluejay offensive attack. Daro is leading the team with a .359 batting average this year and tops the BIG EAST with 19 RBI. Reinhart (.341) and Tash Coffiel (.346) also hit well over .300.

Scouting Sacred Heart
Sacred Heart is 1-4 this season after opening the 2016 campaign last weekend in Fort Myers, Fla. The Pioneers lost three times to Florida Gulf Coast and split a pair of games vs. Oakland. Jamie Carlson (1-1, 3.23 ERA) threw a pair of complete games and leads the team with 13 strikeouts, while Lauren Delgadillo paces the team with six hits and four runs while hitting .333. SHU went 14-30 last season.
Series: Creighton leads, 2-0
Last meeting: Creighton won 5-0 on March 8, 2005

Scouting Niagara
Niagara is 1-3 this season after opening the season on Feb. 12-13 in Cleveland, Ohio. The Purple Eagles lost to Cleveland State, Morehead State and Robert Morris while picking up a 4-1 win over Bowling Green. Sierra Bertrand has not allowed an earned run in 7.1 frames in the circle this year, while Jennifer Szilagyi batted .333 with four hits and a pair of RBI to open the season. Niagara went 4-40 last season.
Series: Creighton leads, 1-0
Last meeting: Creighton won 8-0 on March 12, 2015

Scouting Akron
Akron is 6-9 this season but arrives in Florida on a four-game winning streak that includes a 5-4 win on Feb. 26 over Nebraska-Omaha. Erin Seiler (6-5, 1.50 ERA) has been the ace in the circle while throwing 51.1 of the team's 98.2 innings thus far. At the plate Alyssa Nicholas is hitting .349 and leads the team in runs (8), hits (15), triples (1) and RBI (8). The Zips finished 25-26 a season ago.
Series: Creighton leads, 3-1
Last meeting: Akron won 5-3 on March 8, 2015

Scouting Holy Cross
Holy Cross is 0-5 this season after a winless weekend in Miami, Fla., from Feb. 19-21. The Crusaders are hitting just .152 as a team thus far, and Jaclyn Brewster (.313, 2 runs, 1 triple) is the lone player batting better than .232. Holy Cross has trotted out five different players in the circle already, with Gennifer Durham (0-3, 5.91 ERA) accounting for 21.1 of the club's 34.0 innings pitched.
Series: Creighton leads, 2-0
Last meeting: Creighton won 10-2 on March 9, 2006

Scouting South Dakota State
South Dakota State is 3-12 this season after going 2-3 last weekend in Conway, Ark. The Jackrabbits are hitting .267 as a team, led by Jordyn Sturgeon's .366 batting average and team-high totals of four home runs and 10 RBI. Ashlyn Bender (2-6, 5.53 ERA) and Bryana Clark (1-5, 4.82 ERA) handle the majority of innings for the pitching staff.
Series: Creighton leads, 11-4-1
Last meeting: Creighton won 9-0 on April 15, 2015

Scouting Hampton
Hampton is 4-4 this season, but lost four of its last five outings. The Pirates are led offensively by Jada Fields (.389) and Kayla DeSchepper (.375), while Allyson Babinsack (3-1, 6.18 ERA) has been the top pitching prospect thus far.
Series: Creighton leads, 1-0
Last meeting: Creighton won 8-2 on March 13, 2015

Scouting Drexel
Drexel is 3-3 this season but heads to Hampton, Va., before heading to the Rebel Spring Games. Katie Haley (2-0, 3.72 ERA) and Taylor L. Lee (1-1, 4.09 ERA) have combined for the team's three wins, while Paula Ueno (.444, 6 RBI) is the team's most productive offensive player. Drexel went 19-23 last season.
Series: First Meeting

Eck Repeats Weekly BIG EAST Award
Junior RHP Sydnee Eck has been named BIG EAST Pitcher of the Week each of the last two weeks, during which time she's earned all five Bluejay wins in the circle.
   Eck is 5-1 over the past two weekends, compiling a 3.76 ERA in 32.2 innings of work. In that time, she's struck out 41 batters and walked just eight.
   Eck is CU's first hurler to be named BIG EAST Pitcher of the Week in consecutive weeks since Becca Changstrom was honored by the BIG EAST on March 17 & 24, 2014.

Rebel Yell
Creighton has played some of its best softball of the season at the Rebel Spring Games in recent springs.
   This will be the fourth straight season Creighton has spent its spring break in Florida at the Rebel Spring Games, and it has gone 26-4 in the first three trips.
   In those games Creighton owns a collective ERA of 0.86, allowing just 25 earned runs in 203 innings. At the plate the Bluejays are hitting .271 in those Florida games, hitting 202-for-745 in the 30 games.
Year   W-L   AVG   R   HR   ERA
2015   9-1   .304   63   8   0.74
2014   11-1   .264   47   4   0.77
2013   6-2   .241   29   9   1.15

Daro at the Bat
Junior first baseman Jen Daro had a huge weekend at the Troy Cox Classic from Feb. 19-21. In five games in Las Cruces, Daro combined to hit 6-for-12 at the plate with 13 RBI.
   She homered once in Creighton's 11-3 win over Campbell on Saturday, Feb. 20, and twice more in the Bluejays' following game that day, a 6-1 win over Western Michigan. Prior to Daro, the last Creighton player to homer in consecutive contests was Alexis Cantu—a current assistant on Creighton's coaching staff—in 2014.
   Cantu had also been the last Bluejay with multiple three-run home runs in the same game, having done so on April 6, 2012 at Wichita State as part of a game with three home runs.
   Daro's three different three-run homers over the course of two games on Feb. 20 are made more impressive when learning that CU hit seven total three-run homers in 2015.

It Goes On And On For Daro
Jen Daro enters the Rebel Spring Games with a seven-game hitting streak, the longest by any Bluejay this season. During the spell she's hitting .524 (11-for-21) and owns four home runs and 13 RBI.
   Daro's seven-game hitting streak is the longest of her career by two games, as she had a five-game stretch with a hit as a freshman in 2014.
   Daro has also reached base a team-best 11 straight games, tying her career-long also set in 2014.

Covering the Bases with Erin McGonigal
Fans who enjoyed following Creighton Softball along with Erin McGonigal last season can do so again this year, as the senior infielder chronicles the Bluejays' 2016 season in her "Covering the Bases" blog. Blog updates can be found online at GoCreighton.com.

Strength of Schedule
The Bluejays' schedule features eight opponents who made NCAA Tournament appearances last season, including five teams which won their respective regular-season conference championships: BYU (WCC), Cal State Northridge (Big West), New Mexico State (WAC), Oklahoma (Big 12), and St. John's (BIG EAST).
   Creighton's matchups with Oklahoma and New Mexico State in the Troy Cox Classic marked the fifth and sixth occasions already this season that the Bluejays faced off with teams that finished last season with RPI rankings better than 70: Tennessee (9), Oklahoma (12), New Mexico State (43), Cal State Northridge (51), BYU (56), and UC Riverside (70).
   One of Creighton's toughest tests of the year came immediately out of the gate with a season-opening matchup with perennial power Tennessee to begin the Kajikawa Classic on Feb. 11. In the contest, Creighton trailed by a slim, 3-0, margin until the sixth inning when Tennessee scored twice to seal a 5-0 victory. Last season, the Volunteers posted a 47-17 record and clinched the program's seventh Women's College World Series bid.

Winningest Coach in Creighton History
Head Coach Brent Vigness is in his 23rd season as head coach at Creighton, where he owns a 692-499-3 record. He is the winningest coach in Creighton history in any sport and stands eight wins shy of 700 career wins with the Bluejays.
   Vigness has a career record of 840-570-4 in 28 years overall, which includes five seasons at Assumption (Mass.) College.
   Vigness is assisted by two of his former players, Renae Sinkler and Alexis Cantu.
   Below is a look how long it's taken Vigness to reach each 100-win milestone at Creighton:
Win #   Date   W-L-T
100   4/23/97   100-100-0
200   5/6/00   200-168-0
300   3/12/04   300-252-0
400   2/17/07   400-305-1
500   4/4/09   500-345-2
600   4/21/12   600-422-3

On the Road Again
Creighton's first 24 contests this season will take place away from home, as the Bluejays take part in four consecutive tournaments: Kajikawa Classic (Feb. 11-13; Tempe, Ariz.), Troy Cox Classic (Feb. 19-21; Las Cruces, N.M.), North Texas Invitational (Feb. 27-28; Denton, Texas), and Rebel Spring Games (March 5-10; Kissimmee, Fla.).
   After travelling for the first month of the season, 13 of Creighton's next 19 contests will take place at home inside the confines of the Creighton Sports Complex.

Creighton Picked Fifth in BIG EAST
As announced by the BIG EAST Conference on Feb. 1, Creighton was tabbed fifth in the Preseason Coaches' Poll, just one point shy of Seton Hall for fourth place. Last season's regular season and tournament champion, St. John's, was unanimously chosen to top the poll. The Red Storm received all seven available first-place votes for a total of 49 points, as the league's head coaches ranked the teams one through seven and were not allowed to vote for their own programs.
   With two All-BIG EAST selections returning, Creighton will look to build off of last year's 22-21 campaign. Allie Reinhart led the Bluejays with a .396 batting average, 21 hits and 12 RBI in conference play last season. Blake Ringle finished second on the team with 10 long balls, four of which came in BIG EAST action. Including Reinhart and Ringle, the Bluejays return 15 players from a year ago. Creighton welcomes seven newcomers to the roster: Aujanae McCoy, Tara Fallahee, Bry Flanagan, Kelly Mardones, Michal Hylton, Val Bertrand and Mileah McKelvy.

Patience at the Plate
After striking out 36 times and drawing 13 walks in its first four contests, Creighton has flipped the script. Over the Bluejays' last 10 games, Creighton players have drawn 52 walks and struck out just 56 times.
   Leading the Bluejays in base on balls is senior catcher Blake Ringle, who has drawn 16 walks.

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Players Mentioned

Valentina Bertrand

Tash Coffiel

Jen Daro

Sydnee Eck

Tara Fallahee

Bry Flanagan

Michal Hylton

Kelly Mardones

Aujanae McCoy

Erin McGonigal

Mileah McKelvy

Allie Reinhart

Blake Ringle