The Iowa softball team dropped two of three games to No. 21 Nebraska over the weekend at Pearl Field in Iowa City. The Hawkeyes were demolished in games one and two, but salvaged the weekend with a 5-2 victory in the series finale. 

Here are three takeaways from the series loss:

Pitching struggles

The Hawkeyes allowed 26 runs through the first two games of the series. Jalen Adams took the circle for Iowa in game one, and fared poorly. She walked six Nebraska batters and allowed six runs on just two hits in 1.1 innings of work.

Hailey Downe entered in relief of Adams, but couldn’t stop the bleeding as she gave up another six runs on five hits in 2.2 innings, leading to a 12-0 loss.

Game two didn’t get much better for Iowa, as Talia Tretton got the nod and surrendered eight runs on eight hits through 3.1 innings. While the walks simmered down, the Cornhusker bats kept pressuring the Hawkeyes, posting 12 total hits in the contest. 

In game three, Adams returned to the circle and immediately showed improvement. The third-year went all seven innings and allowed two unearned runs on eight hits with seven strikeouts. 

Tough time getting on base 

The Hawkeyes’ offense struggled all series, recording 10 hits through three games, five of which came in game three alone. Not only could Iowa not find a rhythm with the bats, but they couldn’t coax many walks either. 

The Hawkeye hitters drew two walks in game one and improved with five in the second contest, but struggled to get anything done with the runners aboard. Iowa drew four walks and three hit-by-pitches in game three.

In game three, a slow offensive start began to draw up the familiar feeling of poor offensive production for the Hawkeyes. But after Nebraska took a 2-0 lead in the top of the third, the Hawkeyes shot right back with an RBI single for Alyssa Ramos and a two-RBI single for Talia Tretton.

The Huskers hit consecutive Iowa batters to bring in two more Hawkeye runs, resulting in a 5-2 Iowa edge. The Hawkeyes had the bases juiced for almost the full inning, further applying pressure on Nebraska ace Jordyn Bahl, who was pulled with two outs in the third. 

Iowa held onto the lead through the remainder of the game to close out the victory and avoid the sweep.

Great response

Following blowout losses on Friday and Saturday, the Hawkeyes needed to bounce back in many ways, but most importantly, they just needed a win. 

“The win column is big,” head coach Karl Gollan said following Sunday’s game. “Flat out, we were just playing bad softball, and it’s nice to get back to playing some fundamentally sound softball and putting yourself back in the game.”

While Iowa looked like a completely different team in the first two games compared to the rest of the season, they knew it was just about getting back to the basics and not overthinking.

“It was not rocket science,” Gollan said. “It was kind of like, ‘let’s stop sucking’ as quickly as possible. It was just fundamental softball, we were failing at the simple stuff, fielding the ball, managing the strike zone, pitches were off, they were catching too much plate. Against a team like that you can’t do that and expect to stay in the game.”

Up next 

The Hawkeyes, now 22-14 overall and 4-6 in Big Ten play, will return to action on April 8 against Illinois State. First pitch is scheduled for 4:00 local time on Big Ten Plus.