After spending the last two weeks on the road, a home tournament may be just what the doctor ordered for No. 13 Stanford softball, which returns to the Farm to host the Stanford Classic after going 2-3 at the Worth Classic in Fullerton, Calif., and sweeping the competition for the FIU/Adidas Invitational title in Miami. And according to head coach John Rittman, the doctor’s orders could be very important for Stanford, as his team is finally returning to health.

Enlarge
#gallery http://daily.stanford.org/image/full/7092
Masaru Oka

Stanford staff-ace Missy Penna was one of several Cardinal players affected by a team bout with the stomach flu at the Worth Classic and is looking to bounce back at the Stanford Invitational. Penna leads the Pac-10 with 11 wins on the year.

“First of all, we hope to be healthy going into this weekend,” the Cardinal coach said. “We’ve had a bout of stomach flu go through the team, and we’re still battling that this week in practice. So really, first and foremost is to go into the weekend as healthy as possible. Right now, we still have two or three kids that are still battling this flu, so they’re a little weak right now, but we just hope it runs its course so we can have a full roster this weekend.”

Despite the team’s battling the stomach flu at the Worth Classic, Rittman knows that better health isn’t all his team needs to return to its winning ways and continue to improve as the season goes along.

“We need to improve on some areas,” he said. “We definitely have played decent defense at times, we’ve pitched well at times and we’ve got the timely hits when we needed them at times — but we need to be more consistent in all three of those areas. This week’s competition is going to be tough, and we know that, so hopefully we’ll be ready to go.”

Stanford (16-5) will face UC-Santa Barbara (13-5), Sacramento State (4-9), San Diego State (11-8) and Loyola Chicago (1-5) at the Classic, and while the Cardinal would appear to be the clear-cut favorite on paper, the Gauchos, boasting an impressive trio of pitchers, have proved to be a handful in the past, upsetting No. 4 Arizona State 8-7 last Friday.

The Cardinal’s staff ace, sophomore Missy Penna, boasts some impressive numbers of her own, leading the Pacific-10 Conference with 11 wins, 82.1 innings pitched and a .114 opposing batting average. Given how often Stanford has relied on Penna’s arm this season, her performance will play a large role in dictating the outcome of the tournament. Penna struggled in Fullerton, going 1-1 with a 3.90 ERA over 14.1 innings.

“I think Missy is developing nicely,” Rittman said. “You’re going to have bad games over the course of a long season, but she’s been real consistent for us this year, and I look for her to bounce back this weekend and have a good tournament.”

Despite the difficulties her teammates encountered in Fullerton, junior corner infielder Michelle Smith thrived at the Worth Classic, belting three home runs in the first four games of the tournament, including one walk-off shot against Texas Tech.

“Michelle’s always had power, she’s always hit for average and she’s one of the hardest workers on the team,” Rittman said. “So yeah, we expect a lot from Michelle and it was nice to see her get hot last weekend.”

Rittman is looking for an all-around effort from his team at home this weekend.

“I think the biggest thing for us is our pitching has to keep us in games,” Rittman said. “Defensively, we can’t afford to give away outs and offensively we have to do a better job of being consistent and putting our hits together.”

The Cardinal is 16-4 all time in the Stanford Classic and swept the competition last year. This weekend’s action will begin for Stanford against UCSB at 2 p.m. on Friday, followed by a 4 p.m. matchup against Sacramento State. All games will be played at the Boyd & Jill Smith Family Stadium.