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Millersville

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Softball looks to gain ground on division frontrunners

4/3/2025 7:00:00 AM

By: Wes Champlin, Athletic Communications Graduate Assistant

COVERAGE LINKS

At #15 Kutztown (4/3):

Senior Day vs. Shepherd (4/5):

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ABOUT THE GAMES

  • The Millersville Marauders (20–12, 4–8) first travel to Kutztown on April 3 to take on the No. 15 Golden Bears (24–7, 8–4) before returning home for Senior Day festivities against the Shepherd Rams (12–12, 8–4) on April 5. The division is battling the weather as the calendar turns to April, resulting in the Kutztown games being moved from Friday to Thursday. Saturday's contests against the Rams are also in danger of being moved due to forecasted precipitation. 
  • If mother nature holds off, three seniors will be honored for their time at Millersville prior to Saturday's 1 p.m. start: outfielder/middle infielder Kendra Bumgardner, outfielder Bryn Spoerl and pitcher/first baseman Angelina Saverase. 

SCOUTING THE MARAUDERS

  • Millersville received a timely bye this past Tuesday after a hard-fought weekend against No. 11 East Stroudsburg and Bloomsburg. The Marauders played two extra-inning contests and nearly escaped the back-to-back with a split but couldn't close it out against the Warriors. They enter this week with a 4–8 conference record that's good for seventh in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference's (PSAC) East Division. 
  • A few batters have hit their stride as the season's wore on: Bumgardner, junior Victoria Fuss and freshman Jocelyn Langer. The senior superutilitywoman has appeared all over the diamond in 2025, but that hasn't affected her hitting; she had seven hits including a double in the four games over the weekend and improved her average to .350. Bumgardner has also crept her way up a few career leaderboards with her continued production this season. She reached the 100 career runs mark over a month ago and now has 120 runs scored, which ranks fourth in team history. Health permitting, she's got a good chance to become the all-time leader in at-bats as well; she's got 572 as of publication, just 24 from Meghan Sinback's 596 from 2004-07. The Centre Hall, Pennsylvania native is also top 10 in hits (173, sixth) and doubles (34, T-seventh). 
  • After missing time early in the campaign, Fuss has settled in over the past few weeks. She tallied five base knocks over her last three games and carried the Marauders to victory on March 29 against Bloomsburg. She belted a two-run home run in the sixth inning to give the Marauders a 3–2 lead and walked it off with a single in the bottom of the ninth inning. Fuss is hitting .325 this season with an .870 OPS. 
  • Langer has been on-base nearly all season–in fact, she's riding an on-base streak of 30 straight games dating back to Feb. 26. She leads the PSAC in batting average (.441), which would rank eighth in team history over a full season. Langer's also second in the conference in on-base percentage, with an astonishing .508 OBP.

SCOUTING THE GOLDEN BEARS 

  • Kutztown is led by Judy Lawes, who's in her 38th season at the helm. She's one of the most accomplished coaches in Division II, with 1156 career wins (4th among active Division II coaches). The Golden Bears haven been a consistent threat to make the playoffs over the past half decade and this year is no different, as their 8–4 conference record has them in a tie for second in the East. Kutztown enters this game having won eight of its last 10 but dropped its last game to Shepherd 7–2 on April 1. 
  • A pair of big bats at the top of the lineup do much of the offensive work for Kutztown. Outfielder Emily Henn is having a breakout sophomore campaign and has a hit in 12 of her last 13 games including a current streak of eight in a row. She's batting .421, which ranks fourth in the conference, and her 45 hits are tied with Millersville's Langer for second. Power is not her game, although she can certainly rip an extra-base hit if needed. 
  • Morgan Slomkowski is the other half of that productive duo and she certainly brings the pop, having hit seven home runs in her 31 starts and compiling an OPS of 1.130. Much of her damage done by the long ball was early in the season, however; Slomkowski's hit just one home run in the past 18 games. 
  • The Golden Bears have rode the arm of starter Haley Gravish for much of the season. She's started 14 games and completed 11 of them, making it no surprise that she's second in the PSAC in innings pitched with 101. Gravish has compiled a 2.94 ERA over those 100+ frames and enters this doubleheader with a season record of 14–3. However, her last start against Shepherd was her worst of the season; the senior went all seven innings but gave up 10 hits, six earned runs and took the loss. 

SCOUTING THE RAMS

  • Shepherd may not be nationally ranked like Kutztown, but the Rams still pose a significant challenge like the rest of the league. They're tied with the Golden Bears for that second spot in the PSAC with an 8–4 record and have earned splits against Kutztown and East Stroudsburg this season. The Rams are the only squad to defeat the Warriors in conference play this season, riding a dominant outing from Madelayne Ruffner en route to a 2–0 win at East Stroudsburg on March 22. 
  • That start represents the kind of sophomore season that Ruffner has had. She's averaging nearly two strikeouts per inning (146 Ks in 74.1 innings) and holds a perfect 10-0 record in her 13 appearances. She went over a week without allowing an earned run, tossing 28 innings between March 21 and 29 and striking out 64 batters. She tossed a no-hitter against Bloomsburg on March 21 and struck out 13 batters and followed it up with an 18-strikeout one-hitter in seven innings against East Stroudsburg the very next day. That performance earned her not only PSAC East Pitcher of the Week, but National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Pitcher of the Week for the entire nation. 
  • Aside from Ruffner, the Ram's pitching has not been stellar. The other four pitchers that have appeared in a game possess a combined 2-12 record and ERA's above five. It looks like freshman Sam Colaw will get the start in game two. She's been all over the place as a rookie, with a seven-run outing against Manfield but also a nine inning one-run effort against East Stroudsburg. For the season, her ERA is 5.32 but against PSAC teams it is a much more respectable 3.41. 
  • The Rams have four hitters that the Marauder staff will have to be wary of.  Atop that list is Lauren Moore, who's got a .525 average in conference play and has 15 hits in her last seven games. Freshman Haylee Hartman has burst onto the scene with a .469 average against conference opponents, over 100 points higher than her season-long average. Sophomore catcher Madelyn Chambers has also stepped it up against PSAC competition, with a 1.027 OPS and a .425 average in her 11 qualifying games. Lastly, junior catcher Camdyn Noland has a .367 average and a 1.010 OPS overall with slight drops when only considering conference play. 
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