By Jacob Miller
After a disappointing start to conference play, the Iowa softball team bounced back in West Lafayette against Purdue this past weekend.The Hawkeyes won their first conference games of the season and handed Purdue its first losses in the Big Ten. The Boilermakers won the first game of the series, 4-2, but it was all Hawkeyes after that with victories of 5-0 and 8-3. Iowa’s conference record now stands at 2-4; Purdue’s sits at 4-2.
“We came out ready to attack today,” head coach Marla Looper said in a release. “We had one mindset and one focus, and that’s all that mattered. It started with the first pitch. We set the tone early today. It’s nice when we are able to attack early, and then we continued to attack instead of putting up a couple of runs and then sitting on them.”
Purdue was coming off a four-game winning streak going into the weekend and carried it over into the first game of the series. The Boilermakers jumped out to an 3-0 lead by the second inning. The Hawkeyes fought back in the third and scored 2 unearned runs. However, the Hawkeyes were not able to generate anything more on offense, and lost, 4-2.
In the second game, on April 1, there was no joking around by the Hawkeyes. Iowa turned up the heat and shut out the Boilermakers. Thanks to junior Angela Schmiederer and freshman Devin Cantu’s RBI singles, the Hawkeyes opened up with a 2-0 lead in the first and continued to beat down the Boilermakers. Iowa ended up winning, 5-0. The Hawkeyes had no errors and allowed 7 hits.
On Sunday, the Hawkeyes were absolutely on fire in the top of the third. Iowa scored 7 runs in the third because of Boilermaker errors and quality at-bats that constantly kept the pressure on the Purdue defense. The cherry on top was a 2-run home run by sophomore Brooke Rozier over the center-field wall to put the game out of reach. Iowa only needed 5 hits to win by a final score of 8-3.
A midweek game at Drake and a weekend series coming up at Wisconsin seem a little less daunting now with two conference wins under the Hawkeyes’ belt. Getting in the win column in conference play this early in the season will help in the long run.
“I’m proud of our young ladies and how they continue to fight,” Looper said in a release. “This is a fighting group. I believe in them, and they believe in themselves. It was nice to go out and draw even with the win yesterday and then win the series today. I can’t say enough about how proud I am of them.”