The Hillsdale College softball team won 5-2 against Ferris State University on Friday Feb. 25 after a weekend of five games in Rosemont, IL. They lost the other games 6-3 against Minnesota State University Moorhead, 3-2 against Truman State University, 4-3 against Purdue University Northwest, and 5-0 against Lewis University.
“Performance-wise, I feel like we did much better than we did at our prior tournament,” freshman pitcher Dani Deaton said. “Although our record might not show that, I felt like we all played a lot better.”
This weekend the team had 10 total runs, and one home run. The team also had 31 hits this weekend as opposed to 23 in their last round of games.
“Our hitting improved from the first weekend, but it seemed like we hit just a lot of balls right at people,” Head Coach Kyle Gross said. “Some of the scores in the record do not reflect how we played. We played so well on Sunday, but you know, we didn’t win it.”
The first game on Sunday Feb. 27 against Purdue Northwest had Hillsdale in the lead up until the bottom of the seventh inning. The two-run double by senior Madison Rathbun tied the game until Hillsdale was able to pull ahead by one alongside freshman pitcher Joni Russell’s eight strike-outs and only two earned runs.
“We were doing well,” Deaton said. “Our defense was making good plays. We all had great energy, so it was kind of just like an unfortunate ending. Pitchers don’t really hit, but I’d say from a pitcher standpoint it kind of motivates us to work harder earlier in the game to get more of a lead or even to just push through the end.”
Defensively, there were two instances in which Purdue Northwest attempted to bunt and sacrifice a runner on first or second in order to secure a run. The attempts were thwarted by the work of third baseman Elaine Townley.
“Elaine, like most third baseman, has a natural tendency to always go to first, and I really have been working with her to remember that sometimes you have enough time to turn and throw the third,” Gross said. It’s taken a while, but we’ve worked on it, and she made the play beautifully this weekend. It was nice to see some things we’ve worked on play out.”
The Chargers will be playing two games against Quincy University on March Saturday 5 and two games against University of Illinois-Springfield on Sunday March 6. All four games will take place at University of Illinois-Springfield.
“I feel pretty confident,” sophomore pitcher Erin Kapteyn said. “We’re doing a lot of live, which I think will help with hitting and overcoming those kind of mental blocks. I’m feeling pretty good about going into the weekend.”
