Southern drops pair to close CSU Tournament

Saturday, February 7

Charleston, S.C.

10:00 AM

Southern Illinois University

1-2

Ohio State

3-0

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
Ohio State	0	3	1	0	0	3	0	7	8	1
Southern Illinois	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	2	6	1

02/07/2015 | 12:00:00 | Softball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

Feb. 7, 2015

By John Lock
SIUSalukis.com

Box Scores: Ohio State | Charleston Southern | Photo Gallery

CHARLESTON, S.C. - The Southern Illinois softball program lost a pair of games on Saturday to close the Charleston Southern Tournament. SIU lost to Ohio State 7-2 in the opener and fell to host Charleston Southern 11-1 in five innings in the afternoon game.

"We're strapped. We have a lot of different people in different places," head coach Kerri Blaylock said. "It showed today; it didn't show yesterday. We're going to work on consistency. We're not ourselves, position-wise, right now. We can't play people where we want to play them. But we overcame that yesterday and looked pretty good. Today, we didn't. We need to figure out how to settle down and get a consistent performance on a daily basis."

Brook Womack (shortstop), Kalyn Harker (center field) and Shaye Harre (first base/pitcher) played every inning this weekend, and Bertelsen still figures to be the No. 1 pitcher. Outside of those four, Blaylock mixed and matched at different positions, and all 17 players on the roster played at some point during the weekend.

Freshman Savanna Dover got the start in the opener against Ohio State and kept the Salukis in it for most of the game. Ohio State got a three-run home run in the second inning to jump out to an early 3-1 lead, but Dover held the Buckeyes to just one hit over the next three innings. Dover was inconsistent with her accuracy, issuing eight walks in five innings, but she also flashed her potential with five strikeouts that helped get her our of jams.

"She had some great moments where you could see her stuff," Blaylock said. "She's a freshman; she's going to go up and down a little bit, but I'm going to ask her to be more than a freshman right now. She struck out five of those kids and made them look silly at times. The reason they put up seven runs instead of two runs was walks. You're giving them free runs."

With a freshman in the circle, it was the experienced senior Meredith Wilson who kept SIU within striking distance at the plate. The Granite City, Ill., native had two two-out RBIs that gave SIU an early 1-0 lead and then got SIU to within 4-2 after the fifth.

The Buckeyes put the game away in the top of the sixth. They led off with four-straight hits. SIU had chances to make plays on a pair of them, but Ohio State capitalized for a 7-2 lead that ended up being the final score. Shaye Harre got out of the inning and finished the game for the Salukis, a day after getting a pitching win over UMBC.

"Our bright spot in the circle right now is Shaye Harre. She's been so consistent. She throws strikes. She throws ground balls. Bertie (Katie Bertelsen) is disappointed in herself, but Bertie is Bertie. She's still our go-to pitcher. We still have tons of confidence in her."

Bertelsen started the game against Charleston Southern, a team that returns all its major pieces from last year, when it was an NCAA Tournament team. Charleston Southern hit a pair of home runs to take a 3-1 lead heading into the fourth. But SIU had two costly errors in the fourth inning that turned an already big CSU inning into an 11-1 run-rule game after five.

"They didn't hit her best stuff," Blaylock said. "It wasn't like she had her A-game and they were still hitting it. I give Charleston Southern a ton of credit because they are aggressive and swing the bats. They don't leave anything to chance."

Going up against last year's Big South Tournament MVP Cheyenne Gandara, Southern's lineup struggled to hit. Southern's first four hitters of the game struck out and SIU didn't record a hit until freshman Savannah Fisher hit a solo home run to lead off the third inning. Southern managed four hits, three of which came from underclassmen (freshman Sydney Jones, sophomore Jessa Thomas and senior Kalyn Harker also had hits).

"We had several errors. Our side struck out looking in the first inning," Blaylock said. "We just weren't ready to play, and that's what is so disappointing about that game. The first three games, we're battlers; we're fighters. Tonight, we kind of laid down. That was making mistakes and more of those things. But you can see--we could be a very, very good offensive lineup. We're young. We play a lot of freshmen and sophomores."

SIU started the season 1-3 for just the second time in Blaylock's 16 seasons as the head coach. The other team--in her second season as head coach in 2001--rebounded from a 1-4 start to finish 36-19.

Southern's slate doesn't get any easier. Next up is a game against No. 6 Kentucky at the Rafter Memorial Tournament in Kennesaw, Ga. SIU will also play host Kennesaw State, Morehead State and IUPUI as part of a three-day, five-game lineup for the tournament. SIU's game with Kentucky starts at 11 a.m. CT on Friday, Feb. 13.