Salukis open MVC play with Braves

The Saluki softball team opened the home season in style, taking two of three from the Bradley Braves.

The first game in Charlotte West Stadium saw the Salukis rout the Braves 8-0, but that would be the only game that was not close.

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SIU (13-4, 2-1 MVC) eked out a 2-1 win in Saturday’s second game, then lost the series finale 3-2 Sunday.

Head coach Kerri Blaylock said the games exposed some of her team’s shortcomings.

“I just didn’t think mentally we were as prepared as we should have been today. It’s disappointing. It’s a game that I think we should have gotten and we didn’t.”

Blaylock singled out her team’s offensive impatience in Sunday’s loss. Two of her team’s outs in the game’s seventh and final inning came when Saluki batters swung at the first pitch offered.

The other out came when Maria Damico attempted to advance to third base from first on a single by Samantha Carter, ending the game and the Saluki rally.

This and swinging at change-ups signified the difference between SIU’s play this weekend and earlier in the season when it defeated No. 22 Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

“We take change-ups,” Blaylock said. “We’ll take them until we have two strikes. We were swinging at change-ups all day. Little things like that are what I mean. That’s the things we didn’t do against an Alabama, we didn’t do against a Purdue. But here we are doing it now and that just means to me that we’re not as focused as what we need to be.”

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The player who had the best offensive showing over the weekend was clean-up hitter Katie Jordan, who hit two home runs and tallied five RBIs in the three-game weekend series.

The sophomore slugger said the Salukis, who are two spots out of the Top 25, were guilty of playing to their level of competition against Bradley (4-13, 1-2 MVC), something that wasn’t a problem when her team faced big-name opponents.

“Instead of playing at the same level as the people we were playing, we were playing our game (earlier in the season). We were playing the way that we should be playing. Right now we’re kind of sinking back to playing who we’re playing instead of playing like we know how.”

The Salukis had to play at a higher level earlier in the break when they faced top-caliber competition in Florida. SIU lost to No. 3 Nebraska 4-0 and Troy State 1-0 in nine innings. The Salukis returned to their winning ways with a 3-0 win over Miami of Ohio in the final game of the Tallahassee Invitational.

The Salukis then traveled to Birmingham, Ala., where they swept a two-game series from the UAB Blazers before returning home to christen their new stadium.

SIU will have more chances to settle into its new home Wednesday, when it plays host to regional rival Tennessee-Martin Wednesday afternoon before returning to conference play with a weekend series at Indiana State. Blaylock said she hopes her team will take advantage of the weekend’s experience for its upcoming games.

“That’s the part that we have to learn is we can’t turn things off and on like a faucet,” Blaylock said. “We have to be able to play with a level of intensity all the time.”

Reporter Ethan Erickson can be reached at [email protected].