Turlock, Calif. (Mar. 28) - The Central Washington University softball team took on No. 5 Concordia (Calif.) on Thursday. The Wildcats defense struggled, allowing the Eagles to fly past for a 5-1 victory.
The Wildcats (18-7, 10-2) and Eagles (27-4, 15-3) competed against one another on Thursday afternoon. Unfortunately for the Wildcats, their defense proved troublesome in the contest. The Wildcats out-hit the Eagles 6-5, but made three costly errors in the field.
"We gave the game away defensively," CWU head coach Mike Larabee said. "I thought that we made the right adjustments at the plate. We did better against this pitcher than we did last year. Unfortunately, our defense just wasn't good enough today."
The Eagles plated two runs in their half of the third inning, both of which were unearned. McKinsey Thorpe led off the inning and was able to reach on an error. Two batters later, Amanda Gjertsen singled home Thorpe, and was able to advance to third on the play. Sydney Sprinkle hit a ground ball to second, but the ball was bobbled that allowed Sprinkle to reach base. Gjertsen scored on the play. The Eagles added three more runs in the bottom of the fifth inning.
The Wildcats scored their lone run in the fifth inning. With two outs, Savannah Egbert doubled to left field. Katie Kastning followed with a double of her own, scoring Egbert.
Lexie Strasser was in the circle for five innings of Thursday's contest. She faced 23 batters and was able to get seven fly outs and four ground outs. Strasser did allow three walks and three earned runs. Taylor Williams came on for the sixth inning, getting all three batters she faced to ground out.
The Tournament of Champions gets underway tomorrow in Turlock, California tomorrow. The Wildcats take on the Academy of Art at 2:00 p.m. Then at 7:00 p.m. the wildcats battle No. 13 CSU Chico.
"We have to bounce back tomorrow," Larabee said. "We have a couple of good teams in the Academy of Art and Chico. We have to tighten up our defense to be competitive in the Tournament of Champions."
