Softball team has two-game win streak snapped

Sean Hastings, Staff Reporter

The Eastern softball team had its two-game win streak snapped with a loss to Butler Wednesday afternoon by a score of 8-5.

The game against Butler was a non-conference game so the loss doesn’t hurt the Panthers’ conference record. Their two-game conference win streak still stands.

Their overall season record now stands at 14-22 and their conference record remains the same at 9-8.

Freshman Michelle Rogers was on the mound to start the game and got stuck with the loss.

Rogers went 4 1/3 innings and gave up six runs on nine hits. She also struck out one and walked two.

Rogers now has a record of 6-11 on the year and a 4.21 ERA.

Those six runs were all the Bulldogs needed to get the win as the Panthers comeback came up short.

The Panthers got on the board first on a single by senior Bailey O’Dell that scored junior April Markowski. Both O’Dell and Markowski got two hits in the game.

O’Dell went 2-for-4 with two singles, and Markowski went 2-for-3 with a single and a home run to give her two runs batted in on the day.

Freshman Alyssa Lach of Butler hit a grand slam to give the Bulldogs a 4-1 lead in the bottom of the first.

The Panthers started to inch their way back when sophomore Amber Toenyes hit a two-run home run in the fourth inning. Sophomore Hannah Rachor scored on the play.

That was as close as the Panthers would get in the game as Butler added two more runs in the fifth inning to make the score 6-3.

The Bulldogs’ runs were scored of a homerun by senior Kristen Boros and a pair of doubles by Lach and sophomore Audrey Hiner.

Markowski added two more runs to the Panthers’ total in the sixth when she homered to center field bringing in sophomore Ashlynne Paul.

Markowski believes some positives came out of the game despite the loss.

“I think some positives are that we got our bunts down,” Markwoski said. I feel like we cut down our strikeouts too.”

With the loss come a few things that the Panthers wish they could have done better.

“One thing would be eliminating the silly mistakes and being more heads up and not so laid back,” Markowski said.

The Panthers will now get ready for their conference games this weekend against Tennessee Tech and Belmont at Williams Field Saturday and Sunday.

Markowski said playing a non-conference game before will help them for the weekend.

“I feel like non-conference games are good because we get to see more live pitching and we get all of our errors out today before we go kick ass this weekend,” Markowski said.

Sean Hastings can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].