The Lions (7-3) are favored to win, as they open the tourney on Monday against Hawaii. Based on records, California-Santa Barbara (7-5) appears to be Penn State's toughest test. The wild card, of course, is Detroit-Mercy, who has yet to play a game and will make its debut on Tuesday vs. the Lions.
Distractions or not, Petrini still said she was confident her team would remain focused. And as long as pitching and defense continue to perform well, Penn State won't have much to worry about.
The defense is making an error about twice every 100 times it fields the ball -- and the pitching staff looks even stronger.
Jenn Reynolds hasn't allowed a run through 18.1 innings. Overall, the unit has a 0.39 collective ERA.
Hitting, on the other hand, has been a different story. Although the Lions more than doubled their offensive output from two weeks ago, they're still only batting .217. Reynolds said she wasn't concerned, though, because most teams tend to start slowly.
"During the offseason, you don't get to see a lot of live pitching," she said. "Now you're gonna see a lot of styles, and it takes a while to get used to seeing that in game situations."
Fellow pitcher Ashley Esparza echoed that sentiment and added she felt good her team was improving in the hitting area and sees things getting better as the weeks go on. The Lions will play seven games in five days and would compete for the championship on Day 6, should they make it that far. Penn State will be playing against the likes of Longwood and UNLV in addition to Hawaii (twice), Detroit-Mercy (twice) and UC-Santa Barbara.
"It'd be great [to win], not only for morale but just rankings-wise and for other people to see that we are a team to be respected," catcher Hollee Haines said.
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