Danielle Lopez, Softball
It was a memorable weekend for senior second baseman Danielle Lopez on the diamond. After starting off the three-game series with Bates with a slow Friday, going 0-2 with a run, Lopez picked up her game for the doubleheader the following day.
Lopez started off the Jumbos' scoring in the second inning of the early Saturday game by swiping home on a double steal. She then extended Tufts' lead to 5-0 by blasting a two-run homer, her second of the season, in the bottom of the third, as the Jumbos went on to win the game 9-1. Her third long ball would soon follow, as she smashed a three-run bomb in the opening inning of the second game of the doubleheader, giving Tufts a 4-0 lead. The Jumbos would then score 10 more runs in the game, easily trumping the Bobcats by a score of 14-5.
Lopez now owns the second-best slugging percentage (.702) and RBI total (18) on the team, behind only last week's NESCAC player of the week senior Maya Ripecky. The Jumbos are now 15-0 on the season and have a reasonable shot at surpassing the team's record for consecutive wins (20), set in the 1995-96 season.
Pat O'Donnell, Baseball
After entering the season amid high expectations following his exceptional freshman year — he led the team with a 3.02 ERA and 62.2 innings pitched — O'Donnell started off the 2009 campaign in disappointing fashion, compiling a 5.40 ERA over the team's spring break trip. But the real "OD" showed up for the Jumbos' NESCAC opener, allowing one run over 8.2 innings and striking out 13 with no walks in Tufts' 9-1 rout of Bates on Friday, more along the lines of the ace status the Jumbos had envisioned him fulfilling.
O'Donnell found himself in trouble early, with men on second and third with no outs in the top of the first. But he remained poised, picking off the runner at second, then getting a strikeout and inducing an infield fly to get out of the frame unscathed. Over the next seven and two-thirds innings, O'Donnell scattered nine hits and only one run. He seemed to get better as the game went on, allowing no more than one hit per inning between the fourth and eighth before getting pulled after giving up a pair of singles in the ninth frame.
With the outing, O'Donnell lowered his season ERA to 1.90 and brought his strikeout total to 22, making him easily on pace to surpass the 30 punchouts he registered in his first season on the Hill.
