Pirates to face Siena in Saturday doubleheader

The softball team takes a break from conference play to face Siena in a doubleheader on Saturday.

The Pirates enter the week­end's matchup after getting swept in a doubleheader to Rutgers on Wednesday and getting swept by Connecticut in a three game se­ries last Saturday.

Seton Hall's five straight loss­es have dropped the team's record to 15-17 and 0-5 in conference play.

The Hall has already played Siena this year, beating them 4-0 in the team's third game of the UMBC Dawg Pound Classic on March 11.

Head coach Ray Vander May praised Siena's pitching, but felt a break from conference play would be something that would help his team.

"They have very good pitch­ing," Vander May said, "Siena was one of our better games we played. It was a hard fought game; it was a really great game. They're not a bad team. It's going to be a good matchup for us. It's going to be good for us actually to just to get a little break from the Big East."

Currently on a five-game los­ing streak of their own, the Saints come into the series with a 6-11 record.

The starting pitchers for the series are not set at this time, as Vander May is waiting to see how healthy his rotation is but he not­ed that more than likely, it will be his two freshmen, Danielle De­Staso and Casey Moses, who will get the starts.

One key issue the Pirates con­stantly face is leaving runners on base as they have stranded 36 runners through the first five con­ference game.

"We had opportunities to score runs," Vander May said. "We had runners in scoring position, but we didn't get the job done. We didn't get the hits when we need­ed them. We put runners out there. We had an opportunity to win two of the three games against Con­necticut, but we squandered that because we weren't able to hit in the clutch."

With the Pirates' top pitcher, right-handed sophomore Jen Metzger, out with an injury, the team has had to look to younger players to fulfill Metger's role on the mound.

So far this season, Vander May thinks the pitching has been good for how young the staff is, but feels it would get better as the year progresses.

"We had young pitching that had some nervousness start their first Big East games," Vander May said. "But they actually did a pretty good job, especially in the last two games."

Vander May also added that the return of Metzger to the cir­cle and would help the team and pitching staff tremendously.

"Looking ahead, we should be able to get our top pitcher back, the younger pitchers should have learned from the past couple of games and been over the nervous­ness now," Vander May said.

The Hall will host the Saints on Saturday with the first game of the doubleheader beginning at 1 and the second scheduled for 3:30 p.m..

Brandon Biskobing can be reached at brandon.biskobing@student.shu.edu.