By Courtney Baumann
The Iowa softball team finished its season 13-39, the worst mark in program history.
Iowa seemed to be stuck in a rut throughout the season. It was the same story line over and over: The Hawkeyes left too many runners on base, they lost by 1 run, or errors doomed them from the start.
Iowa head coach Marla Looper continually preached the importance of putting together at least two of the three facets of the game — pitching, offense, and defense — together in order to win.
It did not happen as much as the Hawks would have liked, to the tune of four times in the latter half of the season. Iowa lost 18 of its last 22 games, ending the season on an eight-game losing streak.
So, that raises the question, what now?
Looper said next year’s seniors have to step up to show what it takes to win.
“They’ve got to do, they’ve got to be. A lot of our juniors have been in the spotlight, so it’s not like all the sudden they’re going to be thrust there,” Looper said. “They’ve had opportunities, even this season to be leaders, but our leaders need to be in front showing what to do, not just sitting on the sideline chirping.”
Some of those upcoming seniors include Shayla Starkenburg, Elizabeth Wiegand, Sammi Gyerman, Claire Fritsch, and Kaitlyn Mullarkey. Gyerman, Fritsch, and Mullarkey all started at least 51 games in 2016, and Starkenburg and Wiegand combined to pitch 248 of Iowa’s 332.2 innings.
Next year’s seniors will have much more experience than this year’s seniors did. Of the five who will graduate, only three — Holly Hoffman, Whitney Repole, and Erin Erickson — started more than half of the games. None of them even played in more than 48 games. One senior only saw game time once.
“It’s been difficult because we had such a rough year, trying to get the momentum in our favor but it never turned out how we wanted,” Hoffman said. “We lost a bunch of games by 1 run, which is insane. It shows that we were that close but never stepped up.”
Mullarkey, who has been a leader on the team, not just this year but throughout her career, understands that it is her time and her fellow juniors’ time to be the leaders.
This means taking the time to stay in shape during the off-season and keeping the rest of the Hawks in line to make sure they do the same.
“During the summer, we have to just do whatever the coaches ask us to do. We have to be always practicing, and doing our workouts, and preparing to be the best we can,” Mullarkey said. “Hopefully, then we can set a good example for the underclassmen and our newcomers.”
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