After playing 20 games, the softball team knows where to look for a spark during the course of a game: its battery. This battery, as junior Alyssa Brook calls it, is not a chunk of metal, but a group of pitchers. She said she gave the six pitchers that nickname because they are the main source of the team’s values.

“We all just really love playing,” Brook said. “It’s almost like we rekindled that flame this season.”

With constant feedback and communication from her teammates and her coaches, each pitcher is steadily improving as the season goes on, while having fun at the same time.

Some days different aspects of pitching will need to be addressed. A drop curve pitch needs to be fine-tuned, and the pitchers need to work on placing their pitches where their opponents won’t hit them. The pitchers’ efforts to perfect their craft has kept the team’s morale high and led to its success.

“We are really focusing on jamming people on the inside and keeping the ball down,” Brook said.

The statistics reflect that philosophy, as the Bombers’ pitchers have only given up three home runs this season. As a whole, the team ERA is 2.37.

The pitchers’ hard work is contagious and has spread to other aspects of the game. Ithaca has not allowed more than eight runs in a game this season, which means the pitchers are staying away from the big inning. This helps the fielders stay focused physically and mentally because of the confidence they have in their pitchers, which then helps the pitchers, as only one mistake can make or break a performance.

“It feels good that I can pitch and the defense will back me up,” Brook said. “They know you are working hard on every other pitch.”

Defensive highlights like a robbed home run, an inning-ending double play or even a quick inning in general, give the hitters a shot of energy leading into the next inning.

“When they pitch a 1-2-3 inning, it sparks a fire in you,” freshman shortstop Annmarie Forenza said. “You want to support them on the other side of the game.”

Since hitting can often be a fickle part of the game, getting consistent pitching is now something the Blue and Gold can rely on.

“We know we can depend on them,” freshman center fielder Julianna Van Meter said. “There is a lot less pressure when you know the pitcher can keep them from scoring runs.”

Those good performances give the offense a realistic goal to shoot for. When a team has to constantly score eight or nine runs a game, the added pressure can take a toll.

Relieving any type of pressure is important because it is the biggest challenge the hitters must respond to during the game. The most pressure comes in the later innings, where one at-bat can be the difference between winning and losing.

“Our only problem is getting hits in a timely manner,” Forenza said. “We need to improve on hitting more situationally, like when there’s a runner on third, and we need to pop a ball up or hit it to the right side of the infield.”

Defensively, the Bombers will do their best to keep their opponents off the scoreboard, which should help alleviate pressure at the end of the game.

The battery will be a big part of that, and if both the defense and offense can take proper advantage of the team’s energy source, the electricity will keep going.