This past week, the Drake softball team hosted the Evansville Purple Aces in a three-game series. The Bulldogs played two games on Friday, April 5 and a third game on Saturday, April 6.
Going into this game, the Bulldogs secured a 2-1 series win over Illinois State University that was supposed to send them confidence into the two games against the Iowa Hawkeyes on April 2 at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., but due to the weather, these games were canceled without the possibility of being rescheduled. Although these two games would have been a nice warm up going into the weekend series, the team just utilized the extra time to practice.
For the Bulldogs first game against Evansville at 2 p.m. on Friday, both Evansville and Drake went five innings without a single run on the board. At the bottom of the sixth, though, the Bulldogs secured three runs to move the score to 3-0 going into the seventh inning. Evansville did not score any runs in the top of the seventh, so the Bulldogs didn’t even have to bat.
Drake won the game 3-0 and used that momentum going into the second game at 4:00 p.m.
During the second Bulldogs-Purple Aces matchup of the day, Drake put up two runs in the first inning, followed by one in the second, three in the fourth, two in the fifth and one in the sixth. Evansville only was able to put up two runs in this game, which meant Drake was once again crowned the winner after an impressive 9-2 victory.
This win meant that the Bulldogs went into Saturday’s game with a 2-0 record in the series.
“Getting both wins on Friday felt really good for us as a team,” junior utility player Paige Bedsworth said. “We were able to put up the runs we needed while staying clean on defense. And even though we let two runs through in the second game, we still came out on top by over seven runs in that game alone and left them scoreless in the first. Overall, I think we really worked well as a team and it showed.”
The Bulldogs used the confidence gained during these games to prepare for their last game against Evansville on Saturday, but this final game did not prove to be as easy as the first two.
The Purple Aces came out ready to take down the Bulldogs and were able to do just that. Although the Bulldogs started the scoring for the day by putting two runs on the board, Evansville was able to put seven runs on the board to secure a win over the Bulldogs. The end score was 7-2 Evansville, which meant that the Bulldogs went 2-1 in the series.
“We didn’t play the way we could have today, but we put up a good fight,” senior utility player Addie Lightner said. “No one wants to lose coming off of two big wins, but we tried our best and did what we could on our end despite some hiccups.”
The softball team’s second win over the Purple Aces pushed them to a 16-15 record, just above .500 thus far on the year. The Bulldogs still have some work to do though, as their conference record currently sits at 4-5. The team currently sits at sixth within the Missouri Valley Conference standings, just behind Illinois’ 7-7 conference record.
The Bulldogs next game will be against Missouri at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, April 10, at the Buel Field in Des Moines followed by a weekend series against Murray State April 12-14, in Murray Kentucky.
