During an April 10 game against St. John Fisher College, junior softball player Caitlin Ryan is in foreign territory. Instead of getting into her fielding stance just a few inches from first base, she is fielding a ground ball at the other corner infield position, third base. After playing first for 2 1/2 years as a Bomber, Ryan welcomes the position change.

“It’s kind of fun,” she said. “I’ve played first base since I was a freshman; it’s nice to get a change. It’s not all that different. I am still on the corner.”

After making the throw, Ryan looks 90 degrees to her left at the shortstop position and sees the person who used to manage the hot corner, sophomore Allison Greaney. Switching from third to short keeps Greaney in her comfort zone in the infield, but she is noticing that there is more to playing shortstop than just a different angle from home plate.

“It is definitely different knowing when to cover different bases and getting cuts from the outfield,” she said. “I have definitely received a lot of support from [freshman Annmarie Forenza] though; she has really helped.”

While helping her fellow middle infielder, Forenza is undergoing a change of her own. She moved from shortstop to second base, but her prior experience is making the switch an easy one.

“I played second in high school,” Forenza said. “So I know a little bit of where I am supposed to be. We are all just getting comfortable.”

With sophomore Courtney Noster completing the infield by filling the first base position, the transition headed by Head Coach Deb Pallozzi was complete.

“The original look was because we had an injury,” she said. “Then when I saw it work in practice, I thought we might need to use it later on.”

Those injuries to sophomore Kait Dolan and junior Katherine Wilson created gaps in both the infield and the outfield, which enabled Pallozzi to look at people in different places. Besides restructuring the infield, Pallozzi moved junior Alyssa Guzman from second to her better position, right field.

After suffering the tough loss to Fisher, Pallozzi decided to shake the team up and put the new infield in place and never looked back. The Bombers went on to win in dominating fashion that day, the first of a nine-game winning streak, which was halted yesterday. For Greaney, the transformation is taking on a life of its own.

“At first, the change was really sudden,” she said. “Then we totally gelled and are now comfortable with where we are.”

That cohesion shows during the games, as the shouts and chatter echo all over the field, telling the players where to throw the ball after it is hit.

“Game experience helps a lot,” Forenza said. “We can’t go over every little scenario in practice. We need to keep doing what we are doing and just play.”  

Now that the comfort and confidence levels are up, the athletes are taking that to the plate, as the bats are now clicking with the rest of the team, evidenced by the numerous run explosions since the change.        

“The kids are handling the switches,” Pallozzi said. “They are just taking it on with a great attitude.”

The hot streak stemming from the fielding switch brought the Bombers to 9–1 in the Empire 8, and a win on Friday over Alfred University would give Ithaca College the Empire 8 title and allow the Bombers to host the conference tournament. While fixing the intangibles in the nonconference games this week, the team is still looking forward to getting a strong performance on Friday.

“Especially after starting off the season not knowing what we had and having a lot of new people in new spots, we are definitely excited to finish out the conference season well,” Greaney said.