Wally King knew Julie Wambold was the right hitter to break the streak. Syracuse spent two innings taking bad swings, and Wambold had the potential to turn that around.

If Pittsburgh pitcher Savannah King was going to pitch on the far outside of the plate and refuse to throw Syracuse hitters inside, she was playing to Wambold’s strength: hitting to the opposite field.

‘If anyone can go opposite field, it’s Julie right here,’ King said. ‘She can take those pitches and flip them with her hands.’

Wambold did that and then some. She launched her 11th home run of the season to the opposite field in the third inning and vindicated a game plan SU would deploy over both victories against the Panthers on Wednesday. Head coach Leigh Ross said\ from the moment Wambold’s homer cleared the right field fence, they knew how to attack King’s pitching over the outer half of the plate. The Orange scored 12 runs in two games as it swept the Panthers 8-0 and 4-1 in the two-game set at Skytop Softball Stadium.

Swinging wildly wasn’t going to help SU. Ross said she told her hitters to wait for their pitch and do what Wambold did – hit it to the opposite field.

‘You have to commit to a plan, stick with a plan and trust in a plan at the plate,’ Ross said. ‘Once we knew where we should be hitting, we had a plan that worked.’

SU stuck to their opposite field approach perfectly in the second game of the doubleheader. All six of SU’s hits ended up at some part of the opposite field.

Outfielder Shirley Daniels said SU figured out Pittsburgh’s pitching strategy by the second inning of the first game. When nothing changed for the second game, hitters were ready.

‘Obviously she could’ve pitched us inside whenever she wanted to, but she chose not to,’ Daniels said. ‘Knowing what the pitcher is probably going to do is a huge advantage, especially when you’ve seen the same pitches for a few at-bats.’

The Panthers didn’t put up much of a fight. After Wambold drew a leadoff walk, catcher Lacey Kohl smacked an opposite-field single to right and advanced to second on the throw. And two batters later, Jasmine Watson went to the plate with the same approach Kohl did.

‘This is a great place for us,’ Ross yelled at her first baseman, trying to coax another opposite-field hit.

She got what she wanted two pitches later when Watson hit an opposite-field single past Pittsburgh second baseman Kristen Cheesebrew and drove in SU’s first two runs.

Kohl just missed a home run to left in the bottom of the fourth inning. So in the bottom of the sixth inning, SU looked to the opposite field for some insurance runs for its slim 2-1 lead.

Second baseman Stephanie Watts started off the inning by hitting a double to left-center field, and then scored when outfielder Lisaira Daniels went the other way with a King pitch and dropped it over third base and down the third baseline.

Kohl drove home Daniels with another opposite field double. She said she didn’t know why the opposing pitcher refused to come inside on SU hitters all game.

‘We knew that (King) wasn’t throwing us in very much,’ Kohl said. ‘You never know how many of the same kind of pitch you throw until you look at the charts. Sometimes pitchers can get comfortable.’

There was nothing comfortable about King’s outing against SU Wednesday night, though. SU hitters took the pitches they didn’t like and then effortlessly smacked opposite-field hits when they saw a pitch to hit.

‘It was pretty contagious,’ Ross said. ‘If we commit to a game plan – whatever it is – and have good at-bats, we’ve helped the hitter behind us. That’s when you see it trickle down like it did today.’

nctoney@syr.edu

Published on April 18, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Nick: nctoney@syr.edu | @nicktoneytweets