Softball figuring out identity as it preps for Georgetown

After being swept by No. 25 Georgia Tech this weekend, coach Laura Watten suggested that the Terrapin softball team could be in the midst of an identity crisis.

"We have to get back to who we are," Watten said after Sunday's 2-0 loss.

But who are the Terps? That's the question facing the team as it looks to end a season-high three-game losing streak at home against local foe Georgetown tonight.

During the Terps' previous 13-game winning streak, the team had become something of an offensive juggernaut, averaging almost six runs per game as it rolled over teams with regularity. But that production was nowhere to be found against the Yellow Jackets. During the series sweep, the Terps (22-12) managed to score only five runs.

Their pitching wasn't up to the team's normal standards either. Though the Terps' rotation limited the Yellow Jackets to seven hits in three games, five were home runs, helping to account for the 11 total runs in Georgia Tech's three wins.

The reality of what kind of team the Terps are may lie in between what their winning streak suggested and what their forgettable weekend exposed.

"We just didn't put things together like we usually do," infielder Bree Hanafin said. "We played good defense, but our offense wasn't there, so we just have to make sure we put it all back together."

An offense that had entered the weekend confident it could continue the success from previous games was thrown off by Georgia Tech. After a two-week stretch in which they were able to do almost as they pleased offensively, the Terps suddenly found themselves struggling to keep up with the Yellow Jackets' pitches.

"I feel like some of our teammates let that get to their heads so it was a guessing game, and that's not who we are," outfielder Vangie Galindo said. "We usually know what pitch we want to hit and hit it, and I think there was a lot of guessing and there wasn't a plan going into the box."

"I was just chasing bad pitches," Hanafin said. "No one was hitting, so of course I was anxious to get a hit and get things going, so I just need to stay within myself and hit what I can."

With the season in full swing right now, though, the Terps don't have much time to speculate and wonder about lost chances. Practice will be the Terps' lone recourse, offering them an opportunity to strive for the offensive and defensive dominance that this weekend's series showed they might not yet have.

"It's down to fine-tuning, and we really have to do a lot of mental work," Watten said. "You don't get a lot of times to work on things, so [practices] do become a whole lot more important and more crucial to really make the most of our time."

Against Georgetown (9-26), the Terps have an obvious opportunity to get back on track. Although the Hoyas have won two of their past three games, they have dropped games to teams such as Utah, Villanova and Virginia — all teams the Terps have defeated this year.

"I'm thinking about us really going out, focusing on getting back to us and what we know we can do and who we are so we get to a place where we can feel good again going into next weekend," Watten said.

As for the Terps' identity, the sixth-year coach has confidence in her team's ability to sift through this season's results — both good and bad — and discover what allowed it to become the team that produced the second-longest winning streak in program history.

"I think they know who they are and that's the good thing," she said. "I think we absolutely know who we are. It can happen to any team. You're going to get challenged, and over the weekend, it was a fight. It was a definite fight for the top two teams in the conference. We're still there. We haven't swayed away from that. We know who we are, we know what we can do and what we are going to do. We already set the bar, so we just have to get back up there."

dgallen@umdbk.com