CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – Despite the beautiful playing conditions for the Jags, the IUPUI softball team (0-7) saw things turn ugly in a pair of tournament-opening losses at the Chattanooga Challenge. Tasked with kicking off festivities in the southern state, the Jags were dropped 3-6 by Radford before falling to Kennesaw State 1-10.
The big bat on the day for the Jags was
Delaney Thompson, who combined to go 3-for-6 across two games while clubbing the team's first homerun of the new season. She also added a double and two runs scored.
Alyssa Matson stayed the course, going 2-for-6 with a single in each game. Matson also swiped a stolen base in game one.
Maggie Good went 2-for-6 and secured an RBI in game one, as the Jags saw their team held to a collective .192 average for the day, while opponents swung .406 against them.
A collectively rough day for the pitching staff, Nickole Fince started game one and went the distance, tossing seven innings of work while surrendering six earned runs. She struck out five on the day and gave up just two walks, but was tagged for five extra base hits on 12 total knocks while also hitting a batter.
Erica Tharp tossed game two and nearly went the full game, giving way to
Maggie Armstrong who tossed the final third of an inning. Tharp went 6 2/3 innings with eight earned runs on 15 hits, six of which went for extra bases. She walked only one batter on the day and struck out three, but surrendered a pair of long balls in the bout.
The Jags responded to a pair of runs by Radford in the first inning of game one, as Matson reached on a leadoff single. After stealing second base, the senior advanced to third on a groundout to the right side of the infield. Good knocked her in with a single to center field that cut the deficit to one run and put the Jags on the board.
After a leadoff double by Thompson to start the second,
Roni Patterson singled up the middle to put runners at the corners with no outs. An unfortunate play with a silver lining, the next batter hit into a 4-6-3 double play, but the Jags scored a run to tie the game at two.
The Jags were only able to make noise in the final inning from that point, as four Radford runs came across to score over the next four innings. A leadoff single by
Taylor Chitwood in the final inning started the late rally attempt, but the senior was pushed to third base on a pair of ground outs to the next two batters. A field error pushed her across to the score, but the game ended on a groundout to the next batter.
Things quickly got away from IUPUI in game two, as the Jags were only able to knock four hits on the day. Two first inning runs by Kennesaw State put IUPUI in a hole early, as the team was never able to dig themselves out of the deficit. A disaster in the seventh inning, the Jags surrendered six runs in what was previously a manageable score at 0-4. Thompson clubbed a solo homerun in the bottom half, but 16 hits by Kennesaw State led to the Jags downfall.
IUPUI will have another opportunity to get the elusive first victory of the season on Saturday (Feb. 18), as the team is scheduled to face Connecticut and host-team Chattanooga in a doubleheader.
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