Date:
Thursday, April 11, 2002
Written by Julie Fox
MEDFORD
-- Senior Jodie Moreau (Clarksburg, MA/Hoosac Valley), co-captain of the Tufts softball
team, became the new all-time leader in career strike outs on Saturday, April 6,
in a doubleheader against Bowdoin College.
She struck out Bowdoin 3B Emily Rizza in the third inning of the first
game to record her 335th career strikeout, besting Michelle Lima's 334 strike
outs from 1994-97. Moreau finished
the game with eight strike outs to increase her career total to 339.
Moreau
is a perfect 10-0 with five shutouts and a 0.36 ERA (three earned runs in 58
innings of work), which leads the New England Small College Athletic Conference
(NESCAC). She has given up 35 hits,
only five of which were for extra bases, and opponents are hitting .170 against
her. Moreau has recorded important victories over NESCAC rival
Williams, in which she gave up only one hit in an 8-0 victory, and over the
national #4 ranked team, Wheaton College, in which she gave up one earned run
and five hits in a 3-1 win. She is
the only player in NESCAC to be named the conference player of the week, as she
has taken the award the past two weeks.
Moreau
has gathered numerous awards in her Tufts career.
In 2000, Moreau was named to the All-NESCAC Second Team and picked up
three straight NCAA First-Round victories to lead Tufts to their first ever
World Series berth. She ended the
season with a 1.73 ERA and a 14-8 record, and set the single-season strike out
record with 119. Last season she
was named to the All-NESCAC Second Team after finishing 17-5 with a 1.33 ERA,
and was named to the NFCA New England First Team.
She was the winning pitcher in all three of the Jumbos' NESCAC tournament
victories, and in all three of their NCAA First-Round wins.
She also broke her own single-season strikeout record, this time with
129.
Several
records are within Moreau's reach this season.
With 10 wins on the season and 48 in her career, she needs only seven
more wins this season to both tie her own single-season win total (17, set in
2001) and break Lima's career win total of 54.
With her shutout of Chapman University on March 23, Moreau upped her
career shutout total to 18, breaking Lima's old record of 17.
She is also in reach of breaking her own single-season shutout record of
8, set last season. Moreau's career
ERA is getting lower and lower this season, creeping up on Lima's 1.56 career
ERA record. She also has a chance
to break Rachel Brecher's 1998 single-season ERA record of 1.11.
The
team is currently 13-5, and 6-0 since returning from the Sun West tournament in
Orange, CA. They are ranked #17 in
the country by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA). Halfway through their NESCAC East Division schedule, the team
is 4-0 and in excellent position to secure a post-season berth, which goes to
the top two teams in both NESCAC divisions.
They are back in action this weekend with an away game against Brandeis
University on Saturday, April 13 and a home doubleheader against Eastern
Connecticut State University on Sunday, April 14.
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