Titans Softball Looks To Turn Season Around
By Mark DeCotis // March 27, 2015
three crucial doubleheaders in nine days
BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – Eastern Florida’s softball team, finding its stride after an up and down season punctuated by losing 12 games and precious practice time to rain, faces three crucial doubleheaders in the next nine days.
Winners of six of their last eight games, Eastern Florida visits FCSAA Southern Conference leader Miami Dade College on Saturday in Kendall and then hosts third-place Palm Beach State at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 2 and last-place Broward College at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 4.
Admission to Eastern Florida home games on the Palm Bay Campus is free.
Eastern Florida is 12-14 overall but more importantly 3-5 in the conference. Florida fifth-ranked Miami Dade is 7-1, nationally fifth-ranked and Florida second-ranked Indian RiverState is 7-3 and Palm Beach 4-5. Broward is 0-7.
Eastern Florida is a combined 0-4 against Miami Dade and Palm Beach, 1-1 against Indian River and 2-0 vs.Broward.
Teams play each other four times.
The top four finishers advance to the NJCAA Region 8/FCSAA Tournament in Vero Beach in May. Eastern Florida has qualified for the tournament for 10 straight seasons and head coach Ed Yanes made it clear before the season that advancing by just finishing fourth was not acceptable.
After all, the better the finish in conference the more momentum a team has heading into the tournament and the better its seed.
And then there’s the simple factor of a team competing and playing its best in every inning of every game.
Sophomore catcher Shelby Nazworth is leading the Titans at the plate hitting .412 with a team-high 28 hits in 68 at bats including six doubles, six triples and a home run. Nazworth also has a team-high 21 runs batted in.
Sophomore Dajia Jones and freshman Katie Darrah have 27 hits apiece and freshman
Taylor Zitiello has 26.Zitiello also has seven doubles and 19 RBIs.
Jones has 18 RBIs.
Pitching-wise Jones is 5-6 in 55 innings for a 3.05 earned run average, freshman Kayla Byers 4-7 in 68 innings for a 3.19 ERA and classmate Whitney Stevens 3-1 in 39 innings for a 3.95 ERA.
