Tucson Regional: Preview

Hillenbrand Stadium

Teams: Arizona, Texas Tech, New Mexico State, Harvard
Location: Hillenbrand Stadium (Tucson, AZ)

Players to watch:
Kenzie Fowler, Arizona
Brittany Lastrapes, Arizona
Sandy James, Texas Tech
Hoku Nohara, New Mexico State
Kasey Lange, Harvard

Interesting storyline: Continuing the theme, Texas Tech heads to Tucson for regionals and there will be a couples reunions. Assistant coach Kristie Fox returns to her former stomping grounds at Hillenbrand Stadium and she is sure to get a round of applause from the crowd. A more intriguing reunion is Texas Tech coming to Arizona to possibly face their former head coach in Theresa Wilson. Wilson abandoned her team right before the start of the 2009 season and I think those players will never forget that. Texas Tech is going to be extra motivated to win against their former coach.

Runner up: New Mexico State and this. It is just a complicated situation and it is unfortunate that it took place. It is just hard to understand how something like this could happen without any real consequences. Some people may not be happy about reading this, but it should not be swept under the rug.

Harvard may be lowest seed in this regional, but the Crimson should not be taken lightly. Harvard is a very solid well rounded team and on paper they have a squad that matches up well against the other teams at this regional. Harvard is hitting .325 as a team with 44 HR in 50 games played. The Crimson have two hitters with batting averages over .440 and another at .378. Kasey Lange and Ellen MacAdam are slugging the ball right now and Harvard need them to continue hitting the ball. This trio gives Harvard a trio that matches up well some of the big bats that they will go up against. In the circle, Harvard has two solid arms in Rachel Brown and Laura Ricciardone and both figure to see some time this weekend. Brown is a prolific strikeout pitcher, while Ricciardone keeps the ball down to get groundball outs. Harvard will need to score and keep the ball in the ballpark and they just might have a chance at winning some games in this regional.

Hoku Nohara

New Mexico State is one of the most powerful teams year in and year out and this year is no exception, as the Aggies are hitting .342 with 77 HR, but they are also 80-91 in steals. Hoku Nohara is an absolute force at the plate for the Aggies, hitting .430 with 23 HR and 70 RBI and she has also picked up 61 walks. Teams at this regional are going to pitch her very carefully. The New Mexico State lineup is much more than Nohara, as Kandis Jones is hitting .391, Tiare Jennings is hitting .370 with 15 HR and 56 RBI, Kylie Randall is hitting .364 with 36 steals, this year and Valerie Swedberg is hitting .352 with 11 HR and 48 RBI. Those are just the top 5 hitters in the Aggies' lineup, they also have four other hitters above .300 and another at .297. This lineup is powerful from top to bottom and even the bench can hit the ball. The Aggies can score, but they also allow a fair amount of runs as well. New Mexico State has a team ERA of 4.04 and they are led by Alex Newman in the circle, who is 22-6 with a 3.39 ERA. New Mexico State is going to score runs, but the key will be whether they can keep them off the board.

Texas Tech comes into this regional having won just 1 game in the past 36 days, which is a stunning figure. The Red Raiders use somewhat of a controversial strategy to advance to regionals this year, just as they did last year. Texas Tech has one of the weakest non conference schedules in the country and they use it to rack up a staggering number of wins before Big 12 play. They rack up the wins in non conference play, before using Big 12 play to boost its strength of schedule. The Red Raiders have a bunch of different pitchers that they can turn to, though none are especially dominant. Texas Tech is going to mix and match pitchers especially against the powerful hitters at this regional. The one thing that Texas Tech does do well is that they do not give free passes, but they will need to do more than that at this regional. At the plate, Texas Tech is hitting .347 as a team with 55 HR and they are 70-78 in steals. Logan Hall, Cydney Allen, and Sandy James all have at least 50 RBI and they are 3 of the Red Raiders 6 players that are hitting over .340. Texas Tech has a deep bench as well, but it is hard to tell how good this team actually is with numbers so inflated from that non conference schedule.

Kenzie Fowler

Arizona has had somewhat of a rough season so far, but then the selection committee gave them this gift of a regional. Now "rough" does not mean that this squad is not very good, but they have not been up to their usual Arizona standards.  Arizona would and probably should be hitting the road this year, but due to a number of factors they are staying home and they also got a regional that easier than top seed Arizona State. The Wildcats are also a talented team hitting .319 with 72 HR, but the real key for Arizona is in the circle. Kenzie Fowler has had some terrible luck over the past few years and that continued this year when she was hit in the head by a foul ball in the dugout. Fowler was out for a few weeks with a concussion, but she is back now and with her in the circle I don't see anyone beating Arizona. Fowler can take the Wildcats a long ways, but she has to be very careful about being called for illegal pitches. Fowler has returned to her old motion, which led umpires to call illegal pitches against her last year. Umpires probably won't call Fowler on it at Hillenbrand Stadium, but if they do Arizona might be in trouble. The Wildcats have an impressive offense led by Brittany Lastrapes, who can do it all. Arizona also has some talented slappers in Karissa Buchanan and Lauren Schutzler who get things going at the top order, before the power hitters drive them in. Lastrapes, along with Bridgette Del Ponte, Stacie Chambers, and Lini Koria all have double digit home run totals and they should have a feast against the pitching that they will be facing. Arizona got this nice regional, so they better take advantage of it.

Winner: Arizona