A League of Her Own

As I was covering the Minnesota State women's softball team in the NCAA Division II Central Region Tournament over the weekend I was treated to something totally unexpected.

Fastpitch fans know that the sport is a pitching-dominated game. Hurlers come in with miniscule earned-run averages while batters, even the good ones, struggle to get over the .300 mark for average.

The treat this past weekend was the performance of MSU catcher Lindsay Erickson who put on a dazzling display of hitting in her four tournament game. The sophomore hit safely nine times 11 plate appearances for an .818 batting average.

That kind of batting average is almost unheard of over any length of time yet her impressive performance didn't stop there. Of the nine hits she achieves, two were doubles, one was a triple and two more were home runs.

That equates to a slugging percentage of 1.727. In a game where pitcher's rule, it's almost inconceivable that a batter can post those kinds of numbers.

While there's always an element of luck involved whenever a batter gets hot, I can tell you that none of her hits were flukes or cheapies. She hit the ball hard virtually every time up. In fact, one of her home runs was a screaming line drive down the left-field line -- an opposite field home run for the left-handed swinging Erickson.

She is the reigning Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Player of the Year. If she's swinging the bat this well as a sophomore, one can only wonder what she'll be doing for the Mavericks the next two seasons.