With all the potent bats throughout Syracuse’s lineup, Leigh Ross knows the Orange has the ability to produce remarkable rallies. And she let her team know that.

‘After the game I just told them we’re the type of team that we have the potential to do that up and down the lineup,’ said Ross, Syracuse’s head coach.

During the third and final game of SU’s series with Seton Hall this weekend, Syracuse put its offense on display.

With a 10-run fourth inning, Syracuse went from nursing a one-run lead to wrapping up its contest in five innings with a 12-1 win over Seton Hall on Saturday in front 183 fans at Skytop Softball Stadium. Syracuse’s rally lasted more than 20 minutes, bringing 14 batters to the plate and leading to seven hits.

The blowout capped off a three-game sweep for the weekend. SU defeated the Pirates 2-0 and 5-3 in a doubleheader Friday.

The Pirates held the SU bats in check for most of the team’s three-game set, but burned through all three of its hurlers in that fourth inning. No matter what Syracuse faced, it couldn’t be stopped from earning its biggest margin of victory of the season Saturday.

SU’s rally started with a bang when freshman Carey-Leigh Thomas launched a Danielle Destaso offering over the fence in right-center field for a solo shot. It was one of two homers on the weekend for her.

The other was a walk-off bomb in the second game of Friday’s doubleheader.

‘She’s doing phenomenal. You know she’s a great player,’ Ross said. ‘She’s a kid that loves to play, too, so you always see her smiling over there, and I think that the most enjoyable thing to watch about her.’

Though Thomas had an ear-to-ear grin as she touched home plate, the struggles for the Pirates’ pitchers were just starting.

After two SU players were hit by a pitch and one was walked, Lisaira Daniels and Stephanie Watts both singled, bringing around four runs. Then Jasmine Watson plated another two Orange runners with a double down the left-field line.

The inning came full circle when Thomas smacked a two-run double on the first pitch she saw. Shirley Daniels followed by displaying her opposite-field power with a two-run double of her own.

‘It was fun,’ senior catcher Lacey Kohl said. ‘It’s nice that we finally were able to connect with the ball and kind of do what we’re supposed to be doing.’

The Orange offense was cold in the early part of the weekend, scoring seven runs in two games Friday. In SU’s first game, it collected just four hits, though two were homers. The Orange left 10 on base in the second game of the doubleheader.

Ross said her players went to the plate with a more aggressive mentality Saturday. The moment her team stepped to the plate, they were ready to take their cuts.

‘All weekend we were very patient hitters and late in the count we’re getting the pitch that we were expecting to get,’ Ross said. ‘So I think now you have to change your mindset and say, ‘OK, why don’t you just attack early.’ … It’s hard to commit to that mentality, but once you do you’re going to find better success.’

The precursor to the defining rally came an inning before. Watson gave Syracuse its first lead of the game by hitting a booming double to right-center, scoring Morgan Nandin and Watts.

Watson drove in four runs for the game to lead Syracuse.

‘I was struggling a little bit, kind of lifting my shoulders, so I just basically try to zone it out and think hit the ball in the gaps because they were playing us really deep,’ Watson said.

With a calm and aggressive approach, the Orange escaped with a win two innings early because of the 10-run mercy rule. But the scoring margin was something players didn’t notice in the middle of their onslaught.

They were having too much fun.

‘I don’t think we even realized it until we looked up at the board and scored 10 and then we kind of realized, ‘Wow, we only have three more outs,” Kohl said. ‘I think we were just enjoying what was going on. We didn’t really think about it.’

dgproppe@syr.edu

Published on April 8, 2012 at 12:00 pm