For Immediate Release
April 18, 2012
Courtesy of the New Haven Register, Written by Bill Cloutier
New Haven, Conn. - A friendly duel is becoming
a bit historic for the Southern Connecticut State softball
team.
Sluggers Brittany Bucko, pictured, and
Alyssa Downs have belted their way into
the ranks of the nation’s home run leaders. Along the way,
their power show has vaulted SCSU into 18th in the national poll
and first place in the Northeast-10 Conference.
Bucko slammed her 11th and 12th homers of the season on Wednesday,
tying Downs for the team lead. The 12 homers tie the school’s
single-season mark. Not bad for two stars who swear they never try
to hit the long ball.
“I just focus on getting a hard-hit single to get on base,
but when I’ve hit the ball hard it’s been going
over,” Bucko said. “I’ve hit home runs here and
there before, but it was never this many in this short of a time.
It’s surprising to myself.”
Bucko, a junior outfielder, still considers herself a line drive
hitter, it’s just that a dozen of those liners have cleared
the fences this year.
“You take this one swing and you don’t even feel like
you put any power into it and it goes over the fence,” Bucko
said. “It’s an effortless swing and then it’s
like, ‘Wow, that thing just rocketed out of here.’
“Alyssa, however, can really crush them. We’ve hit them
out of our field, way out, and Alyssa hit one over the scoreboard
the other day. I’m not trying to top what she’s doing,
I’m just trying to add to it.”
While Downs, a Seymour native, has always been a power hitter, the
speedy Bucko has batted leadoff for much of her collegiate career.
But she never once thought of becoming a slap hitter to maximize
her speed. Bucko leads the team in average (.450) and stolen bases
(10). Downs leads the team with 49 RBIs.
“We don’t make cookie-cutters out of our hitters
here,” SCSU coach Lisa Barbaro
said. “We don’t make them all the same; we just try to
help them get the most out of their swings.”
In a game that is perennially dominated by pitching, Southern is
hammering away at the lineage of the sport.
“We don’t take any at-bats off,” said Downs, who
has 29 career homers, one shy of Meg Caporossi’s career mark
at Southern. “I was a good power hitter in high school, but
to be able to hit with power in college is something I was unsure
of. We’ve done a lot of lifting and at the plate we attack
the strikes. Hitting home runs kind of comes naturally to me, but I
don’t try to hit them.
“We’re taught to hit the ball level and mainly in the
air so that it could go. I think what Brittany is doing is great.
You don’t see No. 1 hitters hitting home runs. It just goes
to show that anyone in the lineup can do it.”
Said Bucko: “The home runs have definitely brought a
confidence to this team. The runs take the pressure off our
pitchers and our defense. It’s helped a lot.
“It’s also fun. It’s a lot of fun to run around
those bases and when I get home I jump on the plate.”
Nine different Owls have hit home runs, including freshman
shortstop Nicole Buch, who belted her
first collegiate homer on Wednesday as SCSU went deep four times in
a doubleheader sweep of Assumption. The victories improved
Southern’s record to 29-5. SCSU averages over six runs a game
while the stingy pitching combination of Jayme
Larson and Kelsey Cockrill
have limited the opposition to just over two runs per game.
The formula for success has given Southern’s Bash Sisters
hopes of taking their power show deep into the postseason this
year. SCSU has won the NE-10 tournament the past two seasons.
“We definitely want to go to the College World Series with
this team,” Downs said. “We have a chance.”
