Changes in softball lineup strengthen team

When North Carolina third baseman Haleigh Dickey stepped to the plate in the bottom of the first inning, she wasn’t expecting much.

“I was just hoping for a hit,” Dickey said.

What the freshman got instead was the first of a hat trick of home runs in a victory against South Carolina.

And as she rounded the bases to a crowd of her teammates gathered at home plate, the relief in her face was obvious.

Last weekend, N.C. State held the UNC softball team to six total runs in three games.

It was undoubtedly one of the low points in the season thus far and just the latest example of inconsistency for the Tar Heels’ batting lineup.

But UNC definitely came alive against South Carolina, scoring 17 runs. The bats were humming from the first inning all the way through to the fourth.

“We went into a funk this weekend, and now I feel that we have come out of it,” UNC coach Donna Papa said. “I hope we can continue to build on it the rest of the season and the rest of this week.”

The scoring explosion was fueled by six home runs by three different batters. It was the second time Dickey launched three home runs in a game, with the first time coming last Thursday against UNC-Wilmington.

“What can you say, she’s a monster,” sophomore left fielder Kelli Wheeler said.

The rise in offensive production comes on the heels of some major lineup changes instituted by Papa. After the team struggled to find scores in the first half of the season, Papa decided to insert underclassmen Wheeler, Dickey and Cara Vitale into the batting lineup.

And so far, the change has paid immediate dividends.

“We just felt like we needed to make some changes and get some more speed in our lineup,” Papa said.

“If you stay the same, you stay mediocre. We needed to make some changes, and they worked.”



Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.