Rowan softball’s 31-game winning streak ended, but the Profs are rolling again

When Rylee Lutz isn’t starting in the pitcher’s circle for Rowan, she’s keeping an eye out for anything that might give her longtime teammate and friend Emily McCutcheon an advantage. McCutcheon does the same for Lutz when she rests.

“[We] trust each other so much,” Lutz said. “We have such good communication coming off the field. As soon as we see something with a certain batter, the umpire, literally anything, we go and talk to each other right away.”

The pitchers have been teammates for more than a decade, first playing together for a Deptford Township rec team. They’ve saved their best season as teammates for last. Lutz, a senior, and McCutcheon, a junior, anchored a 31-game winning streak for the Profs, the longest in program history. Lutz and McCutcheon have combined to throw 194 of the 224 innings the Profs have played this season, leading the team to the best ERA (0.88) in Division III.

“I think it’s a huge positive that we’ve been together for so long,” McCutcheon said. “That is why we are successful and have each other’s backs. … I’ve known Riley since she was 10 years old, and we played before we even played travel [softball] together.”

Rowan’s historic winning streak ended in Game 32, a 5-2 loss to the College of New Jersey on April 15. Lutz, McCutcheon, and the Profs, now 35-1, are looking to carry the momentum they built over the streak into the postseason. Rowan, led by Hall of Fame coach Kim Wilson, fell one win short of playing in the title series at the NCAA championship last season.

“Obviously, the ultimate goal for anybody that’s playing this sport is to win a national championship,” Wilson said. “But you’ve got to win a lot of games, and do a lot of things, and maybe have some luck along the way to even get to that opportunity.”

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Rowan was the last remaining undefeated team across all levels of NCAA softball this season. By the Profs’ 25th win, they bested the previous program record for consecutive victories to start a season. But even as the streak crept toward 30, they did not let the pressure of keeping it alive get to them.

“During practices, we’d kind of just goof off and be like, ‘How are we the only ones left undefeated?’” Lutz said. “It was more outside people that would talk about it.”

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In addition to the lowest ERA in D-III softball, the Profs have allowed the fewest hits per game, averaging 4.38 over seven innings, and have posted a Division III-leading .985 fielding percentage.

“I feel like it boosts our confidence in throwing, knowing that not only ourselves but our defense behind us can keep batters off bases and limit what they can do,” Lutz said.

The Profs’ defense helps McCutcheon and Lutz control games from the circle. The lefty McCutcheon has the second-best individual ERA (0.50) in D-III. She is 16-1 across 19 appearances. The righty Lutz has hurled eight shutouts this season, tied for second in D-III, and has a 15-0 record in 19 starts.

In her 35 years of coaching, 29 at Rowan, Wilson has led a lot of good teams. She reached career win No. 1,000 on March 18 with a 10-2 victory over Wisconsin-Stout, and has led the Profs to the Division III final five times. But none of her teams has won 31 straight games to start a season. In the midst of their streak, Wilson tried to keep her team from thinking about it. She wanted her players to focus on the individual games.

“I knew when we got to 25 that we were breaking a record at Rowan,” Wilson said. “Then they learned about it. It wasn’t something that we were trying to track down or anything like that. It was just another game and another day.”

Still, Wilson did not shy away from talking with her team about its stretch of victories.

“I’m not superstitious,” Wilson said. “A no-hitter, a perfect game, all that kind of stuff. You saying something in the dugout and acknowledging it is not going to have anything to do with the outcome of the seventh inning.”

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It is easy to imagine that a winning streak lasting months could put pressure on a team. But the Profs are experienced and knew, as Wilson puts it, to “stay even.”

“We just took it one game at a time, playing our game,” McCutcheon said. “It just ended up going that way for us.”

The loss that snapped Rowan’s streak was the second half of a Tuesday doubleheader against TCNJ. The Profs were tasked with regrouping from a loss at practice the next day, something they had not done all season. For the team’s freshmen, the loss to the Lions was the first of their college careers. The Profs had a sense that their winning streak would not last forever.

“Obviously, it’s going to happen,” Wilson said after the loss. “You hate to have it happen in the conference, but we’re at that point in the season where it’s going to be a conference opponent. … It is what it is — 31-0 was a pretty good start.”

The Profs have recovered well from the loss so far. Rowan has won its last four outings, including 13-0 and 16-0 victories in a doubleheader against Rutgers-Newark on Friday.

With four games left in the regular season, the Profs lead the New Jersey Athletic Conference at 13-1. Rowan should secure the top seed in the NJAC tournament. The Profs likely will receive an at-large bid to an NCAA regional, regardless of their performance at the NJAC tournament, but they’ll receive an automatic bid if they can win a conference title. From there, Rowan will try to advance to the super regional and the championship, where it fell one win short of the title series last season.

In the hunt for their first national championship, the Profs feel that the key to postseason success is to continue being themselves.

“We’re known to have a lot of energy and fun in the dugout,” McCutcheon said. “If we have fun playing our game, we will win.”

Even if Rowan does not make a run back to the NCAA championship series, the Profs already earned themselves a team achievement to remember.

“The streak, they’ll probably remember. That would be something that I think they would remember,” Wilson said. “But whether they hit .500, .400, those things aren’t going to mean anything in 10 years. … Nobody else, until somebody breaks it, can say that. Thirty-one is a pretty good number.”