By Jacob Miller
After dropping three games to Illinois, the Iowa softball team will try to get back on track in its second round of conference games against Purdue this weekend.
Purdue and Iowa had similar records going into conference play, but the Boilermakers got off to a hot start; the Hawkeyes lost three straight. Purdue swept Michigan State on March 24 and 25, 13-6, 2-1, and 4-3.
“They’re scrappy,” head coach Marla Looper said. “They opened up last weekend with a sweep, and they’re at home again. Our challenge, again, is not to go worry about them so much and to worry about us and how we take care of the ball. We go play our game, and the outcome will be what it is.”
The obvious area in which the Hawkeyes have been struggling is in the batter’s box. Instead of building on their success in the Hawkeye Invitational, the Hawkeyes reverted to their old ways for their first two games against Illinois. However, despite getting defeated in the third game as well, Iowa got into a groove similar to that of the invitational.
In their first two games against Illinois, the Hawkeyes combined for only 4 hits, but in in the third game, they put together 9. They also had no errors in their final two games. Iowa has started to find consistency on defense and will need another strong performance against Purdue. The Hawkeyes will try to build on the momentum from their third game against Illinois when they head to West Lafayette.
“We ended the weekend coming on a little bit stronger, a better end than what we started,” freshman Lea Thompson said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get the wins, but our bats picked up, luckily, so hopefully, we can keep the momentum up on offense and defense.”
The Hawkeyes will also try to improve other aspects of their games, such as pitching.
“We’re just working on what we need to work on,” freshman Taylor MaKowsky said. “Pitching-wise, we have focused on just hitting spots, and our infield has been putting in a lot more work, and our hitting has also been staying after [practice] and hitting extra as well.”
The Hawkeyes will try to play spoiler against Purdue, which is on a four-game winning streak, including four games in a row at home. Iowa has struggled on the road this season and it will be interesting to see which team shows up today — the team from the early parts of the season or the team from the Hawkeye Invitational.
“I expect us to get on the field as if we are opening up conference,” Looper said. “We want to use last weekend as education and not to dwell on it, because it is in the past. We step on that field; just this week, we’ve been talking about one pitch, it takes just one, being in that moment. We’ve got to be in the moment, and that’s my expectation.”