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Softball
Softball Buckeyes Ready for Final Big Ten Tournament
Ohio State to play top seeded Northwestern in quartfinals
By Kevin Schlosser

The Buckeyes needed some help to get into the 2008 Big Tournament but got it and now are ready to play. After finishing their regular season 33-22 overall and 7-13 in the Big Ten, OSU had to have sweeps from Michigan over Penn State and Purdue against Indiana. When it happened Ohio State was in and now they have a chance to make some noise.

“A lot of people say we backed in but I like to say we earn what we earn,” said OSU head coach Linda Kalafatis. “We certainly would have made it not so close, but I think the kids are excited for a new opportunity because it was certainly uncertain going into the weekend.”

Northwestern tied with Michigan for the regular-season Big Ten title and won a coin toss to host the 2008 Big Ten Tournament The automatic conference bid to the NCAA tournament will be awarded to the tournament winner. Next season the conference’s automatic bid will be awarded to the regular-season champion since the Big Ten has decided to eliminate the tournament after this season. The Big Ten coaches voted to end the tournament and add an extra week to the regular season in an effort to alleviate scheduling and travel problems that have plagued the conference.

As the eighth seed Ohio State faces a stiff challenge in their first game, top-seeded Northwestern.

Last season the two teams split during the regular season and met in the finals where the Buckeyes won 2-1 with a run in the bottom of the seventh inning. This year the two teams will meet in the quartfinals at 5:30 on Thursday.

“We are going there with the intent of winning it all. We will worry about it one game at a time and we face Northwestern to start it off,” asserted Kalafatis. “They are no strangers to us; there is a history. If you want to finish as champion you have to beat the best and that is what we will try to do.”

Recognizing a slim margin of error in a single-elimination tournament and some tough competition the Buckeyes are confident they will do much better the second time around.

“It is critical to get off to a good start; it is important in every game. We can look back and say we weren’t playing very good when we played them the first time and we are playing better now,” said Kalafatis.

Ohio State senior Brittany Vanderink will be playing in her fourth and final Big Ten Tournament. With her playing career on the line, Vanderink doesn’t care who the opponent is she just wants to play ball and leave it all on the field.

“It is not about whether they are a powerhouse team or not. We have to fix our mistakes from the last time we played them. We were in a lull the first time we faced them and now we are raring to go,” stated Vanderink.

“We are hitting better and our defense is on top again so we are just going to go at them. It doesn’t matter if they are first in the conference or top five in the nation we are just going to go at them.”

OSU junior Kim Reeder has been preparing to face both Michigan and Northwestern for more than a week with the Big Ten title still up for grabs. With only one game per day, Reeder is expected to start against Northwestern and will see a lot more action with a win in game one.

“Northwestern is one of the top teams in the tournament and we are going to have to get past the best to go to the championship game,” said Reeder. “We have to play every game like it is the championship game if we want to win the tournament.

Ohio State will try to follow in the footsteps of the 2004 Michigan State team. As the eight seed, the Spartans upset the top-seeded Wolverines in Ann Arbor. They followed it up with two more wins to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. While the Buckeyes went through a rough period this year, they spent the first two months of the season ranked in the top twenty-five.

“We had some adversity through the midway point; it took us a while to re-find ourselves and that can happen with a young team, but I think we have done that and our kids are ready to fight hard,” asserted Kalafatis. “There are a lot of new kids that hasn’t been through this before so as much as we will use the experience of the returnees we can certainly use this for the future for the new kids.”

If the Buckeyes can get past the Wildcats on Thursday they will advance to the semifinals at 5:30 on Friday and will face the winner of the Purdue-Minnesota game. OSU split doubleheaders on the road with both of their possible semifinal opponents in the regular season. The 2008 Big Ten championship game will be played on Saturday at noon.

Michigan and Iowa are the second and third seeds in the top half of the bracket; they are also the only two teams to qualify for the last eight Big Ten Tournaments. The Illini and Spartans will be playing for the upset as the fifth and seventh seeds. In the regular season Ohio State split with Iowa and Illinois and was swept by Northwestern, Michigan and Michigan State.

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