First Round ACC Championship Game Notes
SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The Notre Dame softball team begins its postseason quest this week in the ACC Softball Championships in Brighton, Massachusetts on the campus of Boston College. The 11th-seeded Irish are set to face off against 6th-seeded North Carolina at 7:30 p.m. on ACC Network Wednesday night. It’s the second-straight season Notre Dame will take on the Tar Heels in the first round of the conference tournament.
The Irish are 8-10 all-time in the ACC Championship, including a 7-4 win last year over North Carolina. Micaela Kastor threw four scoreless innings in relief while Jane Kronenberger and Anna Holloway hit back-to-back home runs in the victory.
The Irish kept the season series competitive against the Tar Heels this season. Even though North Carolina won all three matchups, Notre Dame pushed them in the final two matchups, dropping them by a combined three runs.
Led by Kastor’s 120 strikeouts on the season, the Irish pitching staff has proven to be an elite strikeout pitching team in the conference. Notre Dame is the only team in the conference with three pitchers having 70 or more strikeouts on the season (Kastor, Kami Kamzik-82, Brianne Weiss-70). In the series against North Carolina in late April, Kastor struck out 19 Tar Heels over the span of two starts.
Seven players on the year have hit their first career home run this season; Kaia Cortes, Paige Cowley, Rebecca Eckart, Avery Houlihan, Olivia Levitt, Sydny Poeck and Christian Willemssen. Notre Dame has nine games with multiple home runs this season and had a 7-game home run streak earlier this season.
The winner of Notre Dame-North Caroline gets a matchup with 14th-ranked and 3rd-seeded Virginia Tech Thursday at 7:30 p.m. on ACC Network. The Irish have advanced past the first round of the ACC Championship six times since 2014.