The Iowa softball team traveled to Rosemont, Illinois, over this past weekend at the Total Control Sports Invitational. The Hawkeyes played five games from Feb. 19 to Sunday. They won the first but fell in the last four.
Iowa started out hot in a 7-1 win over Indiana-Purdue/Indianapolis on Feb. 19. Five runs on 4 hits in the first inning secured the win.

“[Indianapolis] came out firing, and you tip your hat to them for coming out and putting the pressure on us early,” Iowa head coach Marla Looper said in a release. “We turned around and put a 5 spot up. It was nice to see us come back and take it over.”

However, Iowa was unable to keep the momentum rolling through the rest of the tournament. The Hawkeyes had one more game that day, which they lost, 3-2, to Illinois-Chicago.

Freshman Erin Riding started the game, allowing 4 hits and 3 walks.

“We had chances to score,” Looper said in a release. “We left way too many runners on base. We have to take care of the ball in the circle, at the plate, and defensively. We handed them 2 of their 3 runs.”

The rest of the weekend followed suit. Feb. 20 registered 7-0 and 4-0 losses to Lipscomb and Loyola-Chicago, respectively. Iowa played only one game on Sunday, which it lost to Indiana State, 3-2.

The bats were active throughout the tournament for Iowa, but the team did not get the timely hits needed to bring runs in. The Hawkeyes had 31 hits, but 42 runners were left on base.

“We just didn’t execute when we needed to along the way, and we had plenty of chances to do so,” Looper said in a release. “We have to eliminate leaving so many runners on base.”

— by Courtney Baumann