The University of Connecticut Huskies will look to continue their winning ways headed into this Tuesday and Wednesday as they take on Central Connecticut and Yale in the Battle for Connecticut.
UConn, who had a rough start to their season, has since ripped off nine straight wins to improve to 13-11 on the year. This streak started in the Rainbow Wahine Classic in which the team captured six wins over the course of four days then continued this past weekend in their home opener against DePaul. With their series against DePaul, UConn’s pitching dominated across the three-game set, allowing just two runs the entire weekend. Payton Kinney, Hallie Siems and Hope Jenkins combined for 14.1 innings with just one earned run enroute to UConn’s sweep over DePaul.
As for the CCSU Blue Devils, they’ve been kind of the opposite of the Huskies. Unlike UConn, CCSU had a great start to their season, winning their first eight games to start the year and ten of their first eleven, however, the team has struggled as of late. Two weeks ago, the Blue Devils lost two games to Eastern Kentucky by double digits while being shutout (15-0 and 10-0). They picked up two wins this past weekend against FDU but were shutout in the middle game losing 5-0. Headed into Tuesday’s matchup with the Huskies, the Blue Devils will look to have their offense jump back to its early season form to combat UConn’s recent strong pitching performances. They’ll be relying on KC Machado (.370 BA, 12 XBH, 14 RBIs), Paige Stringer (.761 SLG, 6 HRs) and Ava Cino (.422 BA, 19 Hits) to get them back onto another long winning streak.
After Tuesday’s game against Central, UConn is then scheduled to face the Yale Bulldogs. Yale is yet another team that started the year with tough losses but has slowly started to find the win column. The Bulldogs started an abysmal 2-14 before winning each of their last four games. After a doubleheader loss to Bryant, Yale beat Fairfield 8-6 this past Wednesday before hosting Harvard at home, a team in which they took three games from completing the series sweep in their first conference series. Yale has scored eight or more runs in three of their last four games, but it’s been their pitching that has hurt them the most this season, with a team ERA of 4.60.
Both games are here at Burrill Family Field here in Storrs and can be streamed on UConn+. First pitch for Tuesday’s game (vs. CCSU) is set for 3 p.m. while Wednesday’s game (vs. Yale) is set for 2 p.m.