Feb. 17, 2001
The 19th-ranked University of Notre Dame softball team won its second contest of the day, handing NCAA region-opponent Hofstra its second loss of the season 8-1. Notre Dame will wrap up competition in the Holiday Inn Invitational tournament tomorrow, Feb. 18, at noon against 18th-ranked South Carolina.
This is only the second time that Notre Dame has started the season off with a 4-0 record. The Irish started the 1999 season with four consecutive wins, but fell to Kansas 1-0 in the fifth game of the season. A win against the Gamecocks on Sunday would give Notre Dame its best-ever season-opening record.
Seven Irish hitters notched at least one hit in the game while Notre Dame’s Kristin Schmidt (Houston, Texas) won her second career decision in as many attempts. Schmidt pitched six inning of no-hit softball before allowing three hits and one run in the bottom of the seventh. The Notre Dame freshman has give up just four runs this season and struck out 14.
The top offensive stars for Notre Dame in the game were senior Lizzy Lemire (Irvine, Calif.) and sophomore Andria Bledsoe (Higley, Ariz.). Lemire totaled three hits against Hofstra, while also posting one hit against Washington earlier in the day, to finish 4-7 in the two Notre Dame victories. Both Lemire and Bledsoe had a triple in the game, while Bledsoe led the team with two RBI.
A single by Bledsoe, knocking in Andrea Loman (Riverside, Calif.) who had been hit by a pitch and stolen second, got the Irish on the board in the second inning.
Notre Dame’s big inning came in the fifth. Jarrah Myers (Carbondale, Kan.) led off by drawing a walk, followed by a Lemire double down the left field line. Bledsoe picked up her second RBI of the game when Hofstra shortstop Heather Brousseau misplayed her grounder, allowing Myers and Lemire to cross the plate.
The Irish tacked on an additional run the top of the seventh after Bledsoe tripled. Freshman Nicole deFau (Southington, Conn.) earned her first career RBI by smacking a single, allowing Bledsoe to score.