The Iowa softball team dropped a low-scoring affair to Illinois State in a midweek bummer at Bob Pearl Field in Iowa City on Tuesday.
The game went to extra innings with no score through seven, but the Redbirds came out on top, 2-1, after taking 10 innings to do so. The offensive struggle could not pull its end of the bargain despite a strong defense, thus plaguing Iowa’s chances.
“I think it’s really important,” shortstop Soo-Jin Berry said about having a strong defense. “There’s two sides of the game, and if you’re not doing well on one side, you have to make up for it on the other side.”
Dazzling defense keeps Hawkeyes in it
Iowa’s defense has been a bright spot all season, making plays consistently, whether routine or difficult. That trend certainly continued on Tuesday as the Hawkeyes did not commit a single error in the contest to shut out the Redbirds.
Iowa held Illinois State to six hits with two of them coming in the top of the 10th. The Redbirds only had two runners in scoring position until that final inning.
“It kept us in it until the end,” head coach Karl Gollan said of his defense. “Unfortunately, we just couldn’t get anything productive going at the plate.”
Unable to find grass offensively
The Hawkeyes got the ball rolling early with the first two batters of the game reaching base. Jena Young singled on a line drive to left to open the game, and Tory Bennett reached on a bunt to threaten Illinois State early.
Iowa, however, could not advance either of them as shortstop Soo-Jin Berry struck out looking before back-to-back groundouts ended the Hawkeye threat in the first.
No Iowa hitter would reach base until the fourth inning when first baseman Brianna Johnson walked. Again, the Hawkeyes could not advance the runner, leading to another scoreless inning.
The Hawkeye hitters were putting the ball in play — just right at the defenders. Iowa only struck out five times as a team through the entire contest.
“The goal is just to give them simple tasks and be task-oriented and pick one problem that’s going on and kind of solve it, rather than try to address the entire problem because it feels overwhelming at times,” Gollan said. “Unfortunately [Illinois State] kept us off balance and kept the ball on the edges and stayed out of the middle, and we weren’t able to put good enough swings on it to do any damage.”
Another strong outing for Jalen Adams
After a bounce-back start from Iowa ace Jalen Adams in a series finale win over Nebraska on Sunday, the Hawkeye third-year shined once again.
Adams tossed 7.1 innings and allowed no runs on four hits while striking out five before Talia Tretton came in for relief in the eighth. Adams also didn’t surrender any walks through her shutout performance.
Adams showed that her rocky start in last Friday’s loss to Nebraska was just a fluke as she returned to her usual form and gave up just one extra base hit to the Redbirds.
Up next
Iowa will travel to Maryland to face the Terrapins in a three-game series starting on Friday, April 11. First pitch is set for 5 p.m.