Lady Jackets Ready for Home Opener at Cenex Stadium this Weekend (Mar. 16, 2004)

BILLINGS, MT – They threw their first pitch of the 2004 NCAA softball season on February 5, nearly a month and a half ago, but the 31-game odyssey of the MSU Billings Yellowjackets finally lands at home this weekend when the Lady Jackets host the fourth annual Yellowjacket Invitational at Cenex Stadium this Friday and Saturday.  Northern State, Valley City State and Dawson Community College will visit the Magic City for the nine-game tournament that starts at 8:45 on Friday morning and ends somewhere around 6:30 p.m. Saturday evening.

The Yellowjackets—who have been painfully close to winning several games that turned into losses in the final few at bats—will be trying to stop their late game jinx as well as a four-game losing streak when they face Valley City State at 10:30 Friday morning.  MSUB is 9-22 overall this season with many of those losses courtesy of late game rallies by their opponents. 

The Jackets have been outscored by a grand total 24 runs in their 31 games, but much of that difference has come in the final inning or extra innings of games.  MSUB’s opponents have a 20-3 scoring advantage in the seventh inning and extra innings combined.  The Jackets have lost four games on the final at bat of the game, including a 10-9 loss in 10 innings last week at defending PacWest champion Western New Mexico.  In extra innings games the Yellowjackets are 0-5, and in one- and two-run games they are 3-13.

All of those tough losses add up to a record 13 games below .500 with 34 games to play.  Never mind that eight losses have come to teams ranked in the preseason top 25, or that the Yellowjackets had No.1 North Dakota State, No. 15 Humboldt State and No. 22 Western New Mexico on the ropes until the final moments.  The most important thing to the ’04 Yellowjackets is to start filing games in the win column.

“It’s definitely been frustrating,” said head coach Jeff Aumend.  “We’ve done some really good things, but we keep falling short.  We’re hitting the ball well, we’re scoring runs.  We just can’t find the consistency with our pitching and our defense.  We have lapses at the wrong times and let teams steal games at the end.”

The Yellowjackets average just over 3.5 runs per game and are batting .241 as a team.  Juniors Cami Rainey and Sara Hanley lead the offense, batting .341 and .330 respectively.  Rainey has driven in 13 runs with eight doubles and two home runs.  Hanley has six extra base hits and five RBI. 

Junior Joey Ehnes has been the Jackets’ top pitcher.  She is 7-13 in 22 appearances with a 2.46 ERA.  She has already set the single season school record for strikeouts with 134 and ranks second in the PacWest for total strikeouts and strikeouts per seven innings.  Twice last week she struck out 13 batters to set school single-game records.  At the plate, Ehnes is batting .288 with a team highs for RBI (15) and runs scored (20).

The two newcomers that have had the biggest impact for the Yellowjackets have been sophomore transfer Anna Henderson and freshman Aysha Blatter.  Henderson is batting .247 and has driven in seven RBI and scored five runs.  Blatter is hitting .222 in her first collegiate season with four RBI and nine runs scored.

Yellowjacket Invitational Schedule (All games at Cenex Stadium)
Friday, March 19
8:45 a.m. – Valley City State vs. Northern State
10:30 a.m. – Valley City State vs. MSU Billings
12:30 p.m. – Dawson C.C. vs. Northern State
2:15 p.m. – Dawson C.C. vs. MSU Billings
4:15 p.m. – Northern State vs. MSU Billings

Saturday, March 20
10:30 a.m. – Valley City State vs. Dawson C.C.
12:30 p.m. – Semifinal: Seed #1 vs. Seed #4
2:15 p.m. – Semifinal: Seed #2 vs. Seed #3
4:15 p.m. – Championship Game