WCWS: Oregon Takes Down Florida State 3-0 with Hawkins One Hitter
Oregon Pitcher Cheridan Hawkins and Infielder Courtney Ceo talk with the media. Joe Buehtter/StorminInNorman.com
Oregon prepares to enter the Women’s College World Series in a few hours to face off with USA Softball Pitcher of the Year and Florida State Starter Lacey Waldrop. Oregon will counter with their own weapon and strikeout queen in Cheridan Hawkins. The Oregon pithcher has more strikeouts that Waldrop this season. In the pregame press conference earlier this week Oregon Head Coach Mike White talked about facing Waldrop and the Seminoles lineup, “Waldrop we know, keeps the ball down so the secret is to get the ball up, look out for the off-speed and the change-up. It’s a three-pronged sword… With (Maddie) O’Brien, she is a good hitter and she is going to get her shots and we need to vary it up on her, not let her get situated where she knows what’s coming and mix it up a little bit and not put people on in front of her, so we’ll wait and see how we go.”
The Oregon Ducks will counter on Offense with some power of their own led by Third Baseman Courtney Ceo hitting .492 on the year along with a solid cast of talent and speed with Janie Takeda and Alexa Peterson. Coach White was asked about the offense and his starting lineup, specifically the top of the Oregon Ducks lineup, “Obviously, we go as they go. They are table setters. We feel pretty confident that we can get them on, or one of them on, every inning and that brings up our 4 hitter pretty much every first inning. But we’ve done it so far this year, touch wood. They’re varied on what they can do. It’s tough to defend them, because you can’t say sit on the bunt or sit on the slap. You can’t play them too shallow or they’re going to hit it over your head.”
Oregon and Florida State is slated to start at 2:30pm ET(11:30am PT) and will be broadcast on ESPN. We will have coverage of the game on Facebook and Twitter and with the hashtag #EDNSports and a wrapup later this evening following the rest of today’s games.
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