Omaha City Wire

The College of Saint Mary softball team closed out its trip to Arizona Monday with two losses at the Tucson Invitational Games.

The Flames lost a close 3-2 contest to Olivet Nazarene University and then was beat 14-2 by York University. Olivet Nazarene was receiving votes in the most recent NAIA Top 25 Coaches' Poll.

"We're disappointed to lose two games today," CSM Coach Carolyn Todd Bray said. "We played really well against Olivet Nazarene and we're holding our heads high after that battle. But then we struggled in our final game of the tournament and ran out of gas.

"We made some progress this week. It doesn't show in the wins column, but we moved a lot of people around offensively and defensively and learned a lot of things about our team. There's no doubt in my mind that we are a better team right now than we were 16 games ago."

In the first game, Olivet Nazarene scored first with three runs in the third inning. The Tigers took advantage of three hits and one error to score their only runs of the game.

The Flames scored their two runs in the top of the fourth inning. Daisy Lowther (FR/Bennington, Neb.) led off with a double. After a line drive out, Mack Madrigal (SO/Omaha, Neb.) doubled to score Lowther and Paige Stuck (JR/Bellevue, Neb.) singled to score Madrigal. Savannah Schewe (JR/Elkhorn, Neb.) followed with a single but a double play ended the inning.

Madrigal, Stuck and Macy Homes (SR/Wahoo, Neb.) all had two hits each.

Megan Garcia (SO/Elkhorn, Neb.) was tagged with the loss. She pitched all six innings, allowed just four hits, walked one and struck out two.

"Megan pitched a gem," Bray said. "She was tired and sore from throwing all week, but she went out there and really battled. She focused on hitting her spots and, honestly, pitched one of her better games of the season."

The long week took its toll on the Flames in the final game. CSM struggled against York and lost by the run-rule.

"We tried some different people in different positions that game and got some athletes that haven't seen much playing time into the game," Bray said. "As coaches we're still trying to see what we have and which athletes are stepping up."

Mickayla Larsen (SR/Waverly, Neb.) started the game and was relieved by Lowther, then Kymber Shallenberger (SO/Scottsbluff, Neb.) and then Lowther again.

Offensively, College of Saint Mary had just three hits. Schewe belted a double and Kaela Persico (FR/Bellevue, Neb.) and Lexi Smith (FR/Glenwood, Iowa) both had singles.

The Flames used two hits, a walk and two Panther errors to score their two runs in the fourth inning.

CSM is now 3-13 on the season. The Flames are scheduled to play at Peru State College on Saturday – weather and field conditions permitting.

"We talked before we started playing games about breaking the season into four parts," Bray said. "The first part was our nine indoor games and the second part was our spring training games. Now we head into the third part of our season which is conference games and a few nonconference contests. The goal is still to make it to the fourth part of the season – postseason play.

"We knew we had a young, inexperienced team at the beginning. But, I feel like we are making progress and are a better team today than we were 18 days ago."

Original source can be found here.