The Hillsdale College softball team opened the 2012 season with a five-game road trip this past weekend.
After three games against West Virginia State University on Saturday, and another two against Rio Grande University on Sunday, the Chargers made it out of the weekend with a 1-4 record.
Saturday’s games were decided 11-3, 8-0, and 14-1 — all in WVSU’s favor.
“I need to give West Virginia State some credit,” senior pitcher Laura Homan said. “A solid team, a very good hitting team. Solid all the way around.”
Head softball coach Joe Abraham said that while the Hillsdale team was “outmatched,” he expects his team to play much better in the next couple weeks as they get more game experience.
“If they played us in mid-season, they’d still be the better team,” Abraham said, “but they would not have run-ruled us.”
In the NCAA, if a team is up by more than eight runs after five innings, the game is called. All three games on Saturday were called at five innings.
Junior shortstop Kate Hoop said it was natural the team would come out a little rusty. Going into last weekends game, the team had yet to practice on Hillsdale’s softball field, spending most of their practice time on the football field or indoor track.
“The roughness was not surprising to us,” Hoop said. “It’s [about] how we bounce back from that.”
Saturday’s games were the first Hillsdale has played since October. WVSU has played six in the past three weeks.
On Sunday, the Chargers split a two game series with Rio Grande. The Chargers took the first 5-2 and lost the second 8-5.
Homan got the win for the Chargers in the first Rio Grande game, finishing with six hits compared to nine strikeouts. After giving up eight runs in three innings in the first game against WVSU, she only gave up two runs in seven innings against Rio Grande.
“I hit my spots better, I’d say,” she said.
Hoop’s unearned run in the third inning was Hillsdale’s first score of the game. Rio Grande had two errors in that inning alone, three in the game.
Freshman Jessica Day scored in the fifth on a single from senior Jennifer Berlet. Hoop scored later in the inning off another Rio Grande error. Homan capped the Chargers three-run scoring run with a double, batting in junior Taylor Schulty.
Homan scored the Chargers final run in the seventh inning after a single from junior Miriam McKay.
Abraham said he was generally happy with how Hillsdale played against Rio Grande.
“Other than one inning, we played very well Sunday,” he said.
That one inning was in Sunday’s second game.
The Chargers lead 4-0 after four innings, but in the fifth, Rio Grande scored seven runs. They matched Hillsdale’s one run in the sixth, and the Chargers weren’t able to muster any runs in the seventh, ending the game 8-5.
Abraham said the fifth inning was a result of some “extremely fortunate bounces” in Rio Grande’s favor and some missed opportunities by Hillsdale.
“If you could roll everything, skill and luck, into one inning, it happened in that one inning,” Abraham said.
Despite the weekend’s losing record, Hoop said that right now the team’s focus is on getting more game experience before GLIAC play begins on March 23 against Wayne State University.
“[We are] working on what we need to work on,” Hoop said, “getting the first game jitters out, getting back on the softball team, and learning to play as a team — to win as a team.”
The Chargers are headed down to Clermount, Fla, on Thursday where they will play eight non-GLIAC teams between March 16 and March 20.
“There’s definitely some things we can improve on,” Homan said. “But as we get more games, we’ll get to where we want to be.”
