The Hillsdale College softball team fell to the University of Illinois at Springfield in both games of the team’s opening doubleheader Monday at an indoor dome in Rosemont, Illinois. The Chargers racked up one run in each contest, compared to the Prairie Stars’ respective five and two.
“We made only one error in two games. We had good pitching, good defense, and good catching,” head coach Joe Abraham said. “But we just weren’t ourselves hitting-wise.”
Following a week where plans changed multiple times due to weather, the Chargers practiced indoors Friday night in Waterford, Michigan, and Saturday morning in Toledo, Ohio before making the journey to the Chicago area on Sunday. The team was originally supposed to play a tournament in Indiana last weekend. However, days before they were set to leave, the tournament was relocated to South Carolina, and last Thursday, the tournament was cancelled altogether because of five inches of snow in South Carolina.
“Given all the circumstances, we are proud of our girls and thought it was great that we were competitive in both games, and that the tying run was on second base in the last inning of our second game,” Abraham said. “We had more hits [than them] in the second game. We faced two good pitchers. We have to give credit to their pitchers. The first one was throwing 63 miles per hour consistently.”
“The drop balls were nasty,” assistant coach Erin Porter added.
Despite adjusting to playing on turf, and simply playing a game on a real field in general, the Chargers showed impressive performances from its defensive side.
“Our catcher, [junior] Danielle Garceau, and our middle infielders, [senior] Kate Ardrey and [freshman] Jessica Taylor, did a great job getting girls out attempting to steal second,” sophomore Bekah Kastning said. “Danielle threw out two girls attempting to steal second and also picked off a runner at first base.”
In the second game, freshman Danielle Stein threw a two-hitter with 12 strikeouts.
“I’m sure she had first game jitters,” Abraham said.
“Demeanor-wise, she did not show it,” Porter said. “She looked like a seasoned vet.”
Stein had an RBI single and three hits on the day. Junior Ainsley Ellison and Kastning also had three hits on the day, and senior Jessica Day contributed two hits.
The Prairie Stars had already played nine games when they faced the Chargers, so there is definitely some catch-up to do by the Hillsdale team.
“Losing these early season regional games hurts us,” Abraham said. “Each year the GLVC gets more teams in the NCAAs than the GLIAC, and we play them right now at the start of the season, so it’s imperative that our teams are ready to play.”
Starting Saturday, the team will begin a spring break tour consisting of 13 games over the course of eight days in Clermont, Florida. Tuesday will be their only day off in a week where they will face mostly D-II teams, regional foes Quincy and Southern Indiana.
“My overall thing is we’re really good, it just takes a certain number of games for us to show it,” Abraham said.
Porter chimed in, “When we do, GLIAC, look out.”