By Blake Dowson
The 2016 Iowa softball season did not go as planned. 13 wins and 39 losses wasn’t where head coach Marla Looper wanted to be. It wasn’t where anybody wanted to be.
On top of that, the Hawkeyes only managed three wins during conference play.
But all of that is in the past, and with the 2017 spring season knocking on the door, the overwhelming message from Looper to her team is energy. In order for the team to be successful this year, they will have to bring energy on and off the field, and in practice as well as games.
“We’ve had a lot of energy so far in practice. We’re really pumped up to play,” sophomore Mallory Kilian said at the team’s media day in an interview with hawkeyesports.com on Feb. 2. “[We’re] running the bases really hard. Our lineup has shown that we can hit the ball.”
It’s the depth on the roster this year that Looper said sets this team apart from the 2016 version.
There are at least six pitchers who could contribute this season, and the lineup is led by Kaitlyn Mullarkey, who paced Iowa in runs, doubles, triples, RBIs, and steals.
“Right now, we have more depth at every position than we’ve ever had,” Looper said in an interview with hawkeyesports.com. “And we have multi-position athletes that we shift wherever we need to put them. That’s the fun part. It makes writing a lineup a little easier in a sense of we have options. One of the challenges of being a coach is figuring out what those best options are.”
Shayla Starkenburg is back for one more season as a Hawkeye, and she will be one of the leaders of the Hawkeye pitching staff. Starkenburg, an Ankeny native, had a 5.79 ERA last season and a 4-15 overall record. The highlight of the career came as a redshirt sophomore when she threw a no-hitter against Southern Utah.
She will be joined by a young group of women.
“It’s exciting that we have a lot of returners that have lots of experience under their belt, as well as a bunch of freshmen that could have a big impact this year,” Starkenburg said on hawkeyesports.com. “To me, that’s really exciting to see how our team’s going to come together this spring.”
She noted how diverse the pitching staff will be, which will in turn make it harder on opposing lineups.
“It’s really beneficial to our team, especially this year, we’ve got a handful of pitchers that all have different, unique styles and different pitches that they really work with more,” she said. “So for us with different teams this year, it’s going to be beneficial for us to use different pitchers.”
The Hawkeyes have experience, as well as depth on their side this season. The infield in particular is one of the most experienced groups in the Big Ten.
Seniors Claire Fritsch and Mullarkey, along with juniors Sarah Kurtz and Katy Taylor, have 387 starts among the four of them for the Hawkeyes — Mullarkey at first base (115), Fritsch at second (145), Kurtz at third (83), and Taylor at shortstop (44).
“One of our goals is to make the Big Ten Tournament and make an impact this year,” Mullarkey said on hawkeyesports.com. “For the past couple seasons, we haven’t had really successful conference seasons. I think this year we really have that drive and that work ethic we put in all fall to get us to where we want to be this conference season. And hopefully, this preseason will help us prepare for that, and I think we’re ready to prove ourselves.”
The softball team will start its season on Friday against Abilene Christian in San Marcos, Texas, as part of the Centurylink Classic at Texas State. The rest of the field includes Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Texas State, and Texas Tech.