Buckeyes Open 2022 Home Schedule This Weekend vs. Indiana
3/24/2022 6:20:12 AM | Softball
2022 Schedule & Results / 2022 Stats / 2022 Roster
COLUMBUS, Ohio – After 23 games, six weeks and over 7,000 miles of roundtrip travel, the Buckeyes are coming home. Ohio State plays its first three games at Buckeye Field this weekend as Big Ten play opens with a three-game series versus Indiana.
The Basics
Indiana at Ohio State / Friday, March 25 / 4 p.m. / Buckeye Field
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Indiana at Ohio State / Saturday, March 26 / 1 p.m. / Buckeye Field
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Indiana at Ohio State / Sunday, March 27 / Noon / Buckeye Field
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What’s on Tap
- Before Friday’s game, the Buckeyes will honor Ohio State’s national championship-winning women’s hockey team.
- The team, which finished 32-6 and won the program’s first-ever national title on Sunday with a 3-2 win over Minnesota Duluth, will throw out the game’s first pitch.
- On Saturday, kids will be permitted to run the bases postgame. And on Sunday, a postgame meet and greet with the Buckeyes is scheduled.
Briefly on the Buckeyes
- Ohio State enters this weekend’s series with an 18-5 overall record and on a four-game winning streak.
- The Buckeyes are No. 23 in this week’s Extra Inning poll, No. 24 in the DISoftball.com poll and No. 23 in the latest NCAA RPI rankings.
- Ohio State has a team batting average of .304, good for fourth-best in the Big Ten, and has finished with nine or more hits in each of the last four games.
- Sam Hackenbracht continues to be one of the hottest hitters in the country. On Tuesday, she hit the eighth home run of the season and seventh in the last nine games.
- In 23 games this season, Hackenbracht is batting .369 with a team-best 23 RBI and .846 slugging percentage.
- McKenzie Bump also continues to swing a hot bat. In 11 games this season, she’s batting .500 with 12 hits in 24 at-bats and has scored 14 runs.
- Four players who have started 10 or more games are hitting .388 or better: freshman Melina Wilkison (.388, 15 runs scored, .474 on-base percentage), Hackenbracht, Kami Kortokrax (.356, three doubles, one triple) and Jaycee Ruberti (.338, 14 runs scored).
- The Buckeye pitchers have the Big Ten’s third-best overall ERA at 1.79. Three pitchers have seen the lion’s share on innings: Lexie Handley (80.1), Allison Smith (42.0) and Emily Ruck (29.0).
- Handley leads the team in strikeouts (103), wins (eight) and complete games (eight). Her 1.74 ERA is fifth-best in the Big Ten (minimum 40.0 innings pitched).
Home Sweet Home
- Admission to all games at Buckeye Field is free. Parking is available in the lots surrounding Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium, Bill Davis Stadium and the Schumaker Complex.
- Ohio State has an 86-35 record at Buckeye Field since 2013, the second-best home winning percentage of any Big Ten school. The Buckeyes have won 10 or more games at home every season since 2013 (2020 excluded).
Scouting Indiana
- The Hoosiers are 16-6 on the season and have won four of their last five games.
- Indiana is tied for second in the Big Ten in overall batting average at .306. Leading the way in that category is Cora Bassett, who at .403 has the league’s seventh-best individual average.
- Bassett also has seven home runs, 15 RBI and a 1.317 OPS (on-base + slugging percentage).
- The Hoosiers are second in the conference with 61 stolen bases (in a league-high 78 attempts).
- Macy Montgomery is Indiana’s top pitcher. She has a 3.45 ERA with 10 starts, 40 strikeouts and .249 batting average against.
Power Surge
- Ohio State’s 19 home runs rank seventh in the Big Ten, but over the last 10 games the Buckeyes are averaging nearly two home runs per game (15 HRs in 10 games).
- On Tuesday, Sam Hackenbracht and Meggie Otte added to their season totals, hitting a two-run shot and solo homer, respectively.
- In addition to home runs, the Buckeyes are also delivering more extra base hits in the last 10 games.
- The Buckeyes’ .596 slugging percentage over that time includes 15 doubles, two triples and 15 home runs.
- That all comes out to an OPS of .992, which is 164 points higher than Ohio State’s overall season OPS (.828).
This and That
- Ohio State has outscored its opponents 38-6 in the first two innings on its 23 games so far this season.
- That includes an 18-4 first-inning advantage and 20-2 second-inning margin.
- That trend continued on Tuesday as the Buckeyes scored in the second inning on an RBI single off the bat of Kami Kortokrax.
- The Buckeyes are 17-1 when they score first.
- Sam Hakenbracht and Kami Kortokorax each have seven-game hitting streaks, which is the longest by any players this season.
- McKenzie Bump, meanwhile, has a hit in seven of the last nine games that she’s started with extra base hits in five of those games.
- The home team in the Ohio State/Indiana series is 16-3 in the last 19 meetings since 2015. That includes an 8-1 record for Ohio State at Buckeye Field with a three-game sweep in 2019 and 2015. In 2017, the Buckeyes won two of three games at home.
How to Follow Ohio State
- The Big Ten Network announced its softball broadcast schedule on Tuesday and both games of the Buckeyes’ doubleheader scheduled for April 5 will appear on the network.
- Ohio State’s other 11 home games will each be streamed live on B1G+ (subscription required).
- Additionally, all 12 of Ohio State’s Big Ten road games will appear on B1G+, with the exception of the Buckeyes’ game on April 24 at Michigan, which will air on ESPN2.
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