IOWA CITY, Iowa – Playing at Bob Pearl field for the first time in 698 days, the University of Iowa softball team (10-7) fell in extra innings, 4-1, to Indiana (8-9).
Senior pitcher Sarah Lehman got the start for the Hawkeyes and pitched a career-high nine innings. She moved to 5-3 and pitched her seventh complete game of the season.
Freshman Denali Loecker had two walks in two at bats for the Hawkeyes. Freshman Marissa Peek had an RBI single in the fourth inning.
HOW IT HAPPENED
The Hawkeyes opened the scoring in the bottom of the fourth inning. Loecker drew a walk with one out. Kalena Burns singled and moved Loecker to second. Peek then hit a single to score Loecker.
Indiana scored in the sixth to tie the game at one and took the lead with back-to-back home runs in the ninth. The Hawkeyes were unable to answer in the bottom half and Indiana took the first game of the four-game series.
HIGHLIGHTS
- This was the Hawkeyes’ sixth extra inning game of the season; they are 4-2 in those games.
- Nia Carter extended her hit streak to six games.
- Sarah Lehman made her seventh start of the season; in all seven she has thrown a complete game.
HEAR FROM HEAD COACH RENEE GILLISPIE
“It was surreal, we look at our sophomores and our freshmen and neither of them has had a home game on this field. Having the home crowd, they were fantastic, and the girls were ooo-ing and ahh-ing about everything that was happening on the jumbotron. It was definitely an experience for them. Now we have to learn how to fight and win our games on this field.”
“It is a lot of games. It is a lot of innings and we are still working on being able to close those games. We had opportunities. In this game we had a chance to score at home on a passed ball and we got a bad jump on that. We had bad jumps on our steal situations. We need to clean it up. If we can clean up our offense a little bit, then we are going to start winning those games.”
UP NEXT
The Hawkeyes host Indiana in a doubleheader on Saturday starting at 1 p.m. (CT).
