Leading off in the bottom of the first for Syracuse, Alicia Hansen stood in the batter’s box, facing off with North Carolina starting pitcher Brittany Pickett. She struck out swinging. So did Sammy Fernandez in the at bat immediately after. And Bryce Holmgren in the at bat after that.

Syracuse’s bats were never able to turn it around. North Carolina (28-24, 15-7 Atlantic Coast) defeated the Orange (27-19, 8-12), 5-1, behind a seven strikeout, three-hit outing for Pickett, who also hit a three-run homerun in the game.

“She’s just a great pitcher overall,” Holmgren said. “And she does a very good job of mixing speeds and mixing locations and so that’s just one of the reasons she’s effective.”

Pickett is now 26-10 on the season with a 2.37 ERA and 192 strikeouts on the year. She has been a workhorse for the Tar Heels all year, pitching 274.2 innings. Holmgren said the Orange came into the game expecting her “to come and bring it.”

Syracuse head coach Mike Bosch said Pickett’s command and movement are part of what makes her a high-quality pitcher, as well as the fact that she is a lefty. Bosch tried to encourage adjustments in SU’s approach in preparation for Pickett.

“We tried to hit early in the count, tried to hit pitches that were flat,” Bosch said. “But again, hats off to her, she threw a good game.”

The game was tight early, with Syracuse holding down a 1-0 lead into the fifth inning. SU pitcher Alexa Romero had pitched well up to that point, only allowing two hits. However, a three-run home run by Pickett broke the game open and forced Romero, who Bosch said was also nursing a blister on her finger, to exit the game.

Romero felt she had to attack the zone while the game was still close.

“When [games] are like 0-0, 1-0, 2-0, I really just go out there and pound the zone and get after it,” Romero said. “2-0, 1-0 games you can’t let up at all because they’ll get scores and they’ll hit off of you.”

After Romero allowed five runs in the top of the fifth, Syracuse needed an answer in the bottom half. Hannah Dossett led off with a single. The next two Orange batters flew out. A two-out walk put two runners on for SU’s three-hitter, Bryce Holmgren. But she grounded to the shortstop to end the inning.

Despite Syracuse’s lack of run support on offense, Holmgren was pleased the Orange seemed to adjust more to Pickett’s pitching by the end. Syracuse put the ball in play more frequently in the last three innings, striking out just once over that frame after striking out six times in the first four innings.

Still, Bosch knew his team didn’t do enough.

“I thought we could’ve made some better contact with balls but we’ll make some adjustments,” Bosch said. “See if we can do better with it tomorrow.”

Published on April 27, 2018 at 8:08 pm

Contact Eric: estorms@syr.edu