The St. Thomas softball team struggled on both sides of ball as it lost its first game of the MIAC tournament Saturday 10-2 to St. Kate’s.
Pitcher Sammy Hogan struggled in her second postseason start in two days, allowing eight earned runs in 2.2 innings for a 27.00 ERA. The defeat marked her third loss of the season.
“Our pitchers have to do a better job at (placing) their pitches,” head coach John Tschida said. “Right away, (St. Kate’s) got several bleeder hits … and then they’d hit a rocket.”
The Wildcats’ (31-11 overall, 17-5 MIAC) offense rocketed to a quick 8-1 lead by the top of the third. The offensive surge was kicked off with a two-run home run off the bat of infielder Kylie Macziewski in the top of the first inning.
The Tommies (34-8 overall, 18-4 MIAC) allowed two more runs in the second before collecting their first of two RBI on the day with a single from infielder Megan Bush. St. Thomas left seven runners on base throughout the game.
“We thought we had a chance to score every inning in that game,” Tschida said. “We had runners in scoring position, bases loaded several times. We could have easily scored seven runs, but instead we ended up with two.”
St. Kate’s would go on to score two more runs in the sixth, enacting the 8-run mercy rule and ending the game an inning early.
The loss doesn’t eliminate the Tommies from the MIAC playoffs, but it complicates their road to the championship game. The Tommies will have to win tonight’s game versus the winner between Hamline and St. Benedict. With the win today, St. Kate’s gets an automatic bid into the championship game.
Tschida said the potential to play St. Kate’s again doesn’t add any extra motivation to perform well in tonight’s game.
“We never get too high or too low, it’s always about what’s next,” he said. “We won the league because we were resilient and steady, not because we get all jacked up and try to be world beaters.”
The Tommies will face the winner of this afternoon’s matchup between Hamline and St. Ben’s tonight at 4 p.m. at South Field.
Noah Brown can be reached at brow7736@stthomas.edu.