The women’s softball team had a split weekend in Starkville, Mississippi, at the Bulldog Kickoff Classic, bringing home 2 wins in 4 games, including one against Mississippi State.
After an 11-3 loss to the Mississippi State Bulldogs on Friday night, Feb. 18, the Bears brought it back on Saturday against the Bulldogs in their second game of the tournament. In the close rematch, the Bears won 5-3. Sophomore Kayla Beaver pitched the entire game for the Bears. Sophomore Mary Kate Brown had a grand slam and 4 RBI’s for the Bears, which was a major contributing factor to the team’s success against Mississippi State.
Coach Jenny Parsons said Beaver’s pitching, Brown’s hitting and sophomore Kristen Whitehouse’s defense and hitting were some of the highlights in the tournament this weekend, aside from two wins and two grand slams.
The Bears’ first win of the tournament was against Georgia Tech on Friday at 10 a.m.. The team took the lead early in the game; however, Georgia Tech made a comeback and held the lead until the fifth inning. A grand slam by Whitehouse put the Bears back ahead, with each team scoring one more run to make the final score 7-4, UCA.
“Beating teams like LSU, Georgia Tech and Mississippi State fuels your confidence going into the regular season,” Parsons said.
In their final game of the tournament, the Bears fell short to the Southern Illinois Salukis, 9-6. The Bears were batting as the home team against the Salukis and held a 6-1 lead until the fifth inning when Southern Illinois made a comeback with 5 runs.
Two more runs at the top of the seventh gave the Salukis a 3-point lead and the Bears were unable to respond with runs of their own.
“We had a chance to win every game except for the first Mississippi State game. We competed hard and are growing together,” Parsons said.
Despite ending the tournament in a split, the team is still proud of their wins against Georgia Tech and Mississippi State.
Brown said, “It’s still early in the season. A lot of stuff needs [to be] worked on. We will be working to fix these things throughout the season.”
“Our motto this season is ‘not settling.’ We want to constantly get better and not stop going until we get as far as we can go,” Brown said.
Parsons said, “We are very excited to be playing at home these next two weekends. We have a game against Arkansas in between these next two tournaments.”
The Bears will host the Michelle Short Memorial Classic at Farris Field next weekend. The team will play on Friday, Feb. 25 at 3 p.m. against the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and 5 p.m. against the University of Omaha. On Saturday, Feb. 26, the Bears will face the University of Missouri-Kansas City at 1:30 pm and Saint Louis University at 6 p.m. On Sunday, Feb. 27, the Bears will play their final tournament game against the University of Missouri-Kansas City again at noon.