Softball finishes with a 2-3 record on Texas road trip.
By Connor Sindberg
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The Iowa softball team struggled on Sunday and lost, 2-1, to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at Chapman Field in Corpus Christi. The Hawkeyes finished the A&M-Corpus Christi Tournament 2-3 with the loss in their season-opening series.
The Hawks pitched well and played solidly on defense but couldn’t generate enough hits to win, similar to last season’s problems.
Junior transfer Elizabeth Wiegand went the distance in the circle, striking out 5 and allowing only 2 runs on 3 hits and 3 walks.
“I thought Liz threw a very good ball game,” Iowa head coach Marla Looper said in a release. “We just didn’t play the other side of the game well enough to get the win. We tried to stir things up and get people moving, but we didn’t execute when we needed to.”
The Hawkeyes managed to score only 1 run in the top of the fifth. Senior Erin Erickson led off with a single and moved to second on a groundout. Sophomore Katy Taylor moved Erickson to third with a bunt single. Kaitlyn Mullarkey then laid down a sacrifice squeeze to score the lone run for the Hawkeyes.
“We’ve got to execute when asked to execute,” Looper said in a release. “To do that, we have to buy in. We didn’t necessarily have that today. We let them hang around.”
Sunday’s loss, which game because of a lack of execution offensively, was a common theme this past weekend.
The Hawkeyes split games against Louisville and Corpus Christi on Feb. 12, defeating the Cardinals, 1-0 and falling to the Islanders, 2-1, in the second game.
Wiegand had a complete game shutout against Louisville, allowing just 3 hits and striking out 5. Erin Riding suffered the loss in the circle against the Islanders. The freshman allowed 1 run on 2 hits and 2 walks in 1.3 innings.
On Feb. 13, the Hawks lost to Louisville, 7-2, then won a run-rule victory over Sam Houston State, 8-0.
“I liked the bounce-back,” Looper said in a release. “In the first game, we struggled a little bit in the circle and offensively. We came out more explosively in the second game. We had a lot more runners on base, and we took advantage of opportunities.”
The Hawkeyes will return to action on Feb. 19-21 at the Rosemont Tournament in Rosemont, Illinois.
“We will need to get a solid week of practice in before we head to Chicago to play in the dome,” Looper said in a release. “As frustrating as this is, the nice thing about this part of the year is that we get another chance to get back out on the field to correct the things that we have done. We have to get through that and bring a different game next weekend.”
