JMU's Good Off To Great Start

HARRISONBURG — Anytime Megan Good takes the ball, James Madison feels it should win.

“We can win every day,” senior shortstop Niki Prince said. “And having her on the mound, gives us even more confidence. She prepares herself each and every day to win the game she’s going to pitch.”

Good ranks No. 1 nationally for shutouts, No. 2 for wins, No. 2 for hits allowed per seven innings, No. 2 for earned-run average and No. 4 for strikeouts. She’s 14-0 with a 0.23 ERA and a 126-to-15 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

The hard-tossing junior hurler also had a scoreless-innings streak of 70 1/3 innings before it was snapped the weekend in JMU’s 10-2 win over East Carolina on Saturday.

“It is something I expect, but I don’t really think of it in wins and losses,” Good said. “My job on the team is to not let the other team score so that my team is in a better position to score and win the ballgame. That’s my job.

“It’s a nice feeling to hold the other team scoreless, but it’s my job and it’s what I’m here to do.”

A product of Fort Defiance High School, Good said she didn’t focus on anything too different this past offseason compared to what she’s addressed in the past. She said the one aspect of her game that’s changed is how hard she’s throwing the softball this year.

Last year, as a sophomore, Good finished 32-3 with a 0.94 ERA.

“My pitches were probably consistently at 65-68 [mph] last year, but I think I’m probably consistently at 70 this year,” Good, already a four-time Colonial Athletic Association Pitcher of the Week, added. “So it’s not much, but just enough.”

JMU coach Mickey Dean said Good has the perfect pitching technique and that since her freshman year, she’s added a new pitch to her repertoire every year. This season, Good has learned how to throw a dropball.

“When you throw 70-plus miles per hour and have pitches that move at 65-plus, it’s difficult for a batter,” Dean said. “She has progressed and gotten better.

“And it’s scary to think about how much better she’s going to get because she’s going to get better than what she is now.”

On March 3, Good threw a no-hitter for the third time in her career, going the full seven innings while striking out 10 to shut out South Alabama 4-0. She had a two-run double in the game to help herself.

Good has tossed as many no-hitters in her career (three) as she’s allowed runs this year (three).

Her consistency has helped the Dukes get off to a 21-3 start through 24 games by beating every opponent she’s faced including ranked foes No. 17 Missouri and No. 2 Auburn.

“Our motto is ‘each pitch,’ and we feel that if we take each pitch’ one pitch at a time, then things will fall in place,” Good said. “I just try to focus on each batter at a time because you never know when that one pitch will come back to bite you.”

JMU was supposed to play at home in the JMU Invitational this past weekend, but the weather forecast pushed those games to Greenville, N.C. The team’s next set of games of home games — a doubleheader scheduled for Wednesday against the University of Virginia — has been postponed to April 4, the school announced Monday.

The Dukes will now open the home portion of their schedule on March 29 at Veterans Memorial Park with a twin bill against Virginia Tech.

Prince said the 20-plus game start away from Harrisonburg gets tough at times, but is nothing that the team couldn’t handle.

Dean said after the Dukes beat the University of Central Florida on Wednesday, he let his players know they’d have a few more days on the road before returning home.

“They were fine with it,” Dean said. “I think they had a feeling once we looked at the weather and some of them probably figured I’d try to pick up games somewhere else.”

As of Monday, Prince is second on the team in hitting .371, with 26 hits and leads the team in doubles with five.

“I come up to bat and I have this senior mentality where it’s my fourth year and I’m just going to give everything I got,” Prince said. “As a team, something that’s surprised me is that we’ve meshed really well. Our freshmen are doing well. Our upperclassmen trust each other and then also trust and believe in the freshmen in doing what they’re supposed to do, so that’s helped. It’s been very important for us.”

The fifth-year coach said when it comes to his lineup that JMU is more versatile than it has been in recent seasons. Dean said the squad has different types of hitters, which has allowed him to adjust the order depending on the opponent.

JMU’s strong start against solid non-conference opponents has shown Dean his team can stack up with some of best programs on a national level.

“I think you have to play the competition as often as possible and not wait to the end of the season to see it for the first time,” Dean said. “That just doesn’t make sense to me.

“We try to schedule that way from beginning to end so that we’re always trying to stay sharp.”