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FULLERTON, Calif. — The University of Iowa softball team fell, 11-7, to Fresno State in game two of the Judi Garman Classic on Thursday evening at Anderson Family Field.
Allie Wood led the Hawkeyes, going 3-for-4 with two runs and an RBI. Alex Rath (2-for-3), Cheyenne Pratt (2-for-3), and Kaitlyn Mullarkey (2-for-4) also had multi-hit games. Elizabeth Wiegand suffered the loss, thowing four strikeouts in 4.2 innings pitched.
“We made a little bit of an offensive adjustment. We’ve been talking about putting the ball on the ground and we did that tonight,” said UI head coach Marla Looper. “We’ve been talking about that all week. To give ourselves a chance, we have to put the ball on the ground and make them play defense, and we did that tonight. It was just unfortunate that we kept giving them runs back and we didn’t play tight enough on defense.”
Fresno State (11-6) got the bats going early with four runs on five hits in the first inning, but Iowa answered in the bottom of the inning with three runs of its own. Rath walked and advanced on a Lea Thompson single and moved to third on a Wood bunt single. Rath and Thompson scored on a Brooke Rozier single to right field, while Wood scored on a Bulldog error.
The Bulldogs took advantage of three Hawkeye miscues in the second inning, scoring two runs to increase their lead. Iowa responded as Pratt singled to second base and moved to third on a sacrifice bunt before scoring on single by Rath.
Fresno State added two runs on four hits in the top of the fourth and three runs on two hits in the fifth. The Hawkeyes plated two more runs in the bottom of the fifth inning. Mullarkey singled up the middle and scored on Wood’s double to center field before Cantu hit an RBI single to score Wood.
“Tonight, we had a better attitude and a better effort,” said Looper. “The two things that we can control, attitude and effort, we got A’s in those tonight. Those are the controllable, now we have to work on some of the other things and get ready for tomorrow.”
The Hawkeyes (2-9) take on No. 8 Washington tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. (CT) in game three of the Judi Garman Classic at Anderson Family Field. The game will be live streamed on flosoftball.com.