ORANGE, Calif. — When the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team scored four runs in the top of the first inning against UW-Eau Claire Sunday evening, head coach Nikki Fennern must have thought, "finally, an easy game."
But then, the Cardinals' first five games were anything but easy, what's to think their final game would be any different.
And it wasn't.
Despite the four-run first, the Cardinals needed a stellar pitching performance by Hanni Lohmann (Lake Elmo, Minn.) to hold off the Blugolds 4-3, giving SMU a 4-2 record during its six-game California trip.
"We came out swinging with a lot of confidence in the first inning, but then we seemed to tense up," said Fennern, whose team dropped a 3-2 heartbreaker to Tufts in its first game of the day — the Cardinals' fourth one-run game of the trip. "It wasn't that we played poorly, we just didn't play with the confidence we had in the first inning over the final six innings."
SMU scored all four of its first-inning runs with two out. Jackie Huegel (Alta Vista, Iowa) scored the first run on a fielder's choice, while Jenny Schipp (North St. Paul, Minn.) drove in the second with a bases-loaded infield single, and Annie Krizan (West Liberty, Iowa) added a two-run single to right to give SMU what appeared to be a commanding 4-0 advantage.
UW-Eau Claire got one run back in the bottom of the first, but it could have been a lot worse.
Of the first four batters Schipp faced in the bottom of the first, three of them walked and the other singled.
In came Lohmann, who induced a pair of pop outs and a strikeout to end the threat.
The Blugolds did tagged Lohmann for a pair of runs in the third, but that was as close as they would get.
"Hanni did a great job," praised Fennern. "Getting out of that first inning allowing just the one run was huge.,"
Lohmann, who allowed just two runs on five hits in seven innings against the Blugolds, also pitched the first 5 1/3 innings of SMU's opener against Tufts.
And of the 80 pitches she threw against the Jumbos, only two of them she would like to have back.
Unfortunately, those two pitches accounted for all three Tufts runs as Katie Smith uncorked a two-run home run to give the Jumbos a 2-1 fifth-inning lead, then Julie Fox added a solo shot in the bottom of the sixth that sealed the 3-2 win.
"It was one of those games that we did everything right — except for those two pitches," said Fennern, whose team outhit Tufts 7-6, but oculd only manage solo runs in the sec ond and fifth innings. "We had our chances in both games, we just didn't capitalize enough."
