By Elliott Schreiner

Sports Reporter

The Bowling Green softball team had a tough weekend, to say the least.

The Falcons, who have been hot of late, dropped three games to Mid-American Conference rival Northern Illinois.

The three setbacks put the Falcons in the middle of the pack in MAC competition with a 12-9 record and put them under .500 for the first time in weeks with a 21-23-1 record on the year.

The Falcon’s main problem came at the plate as they were held in check all weekend. The offense could only muster two runs and complimented those two runs with a less than impressive 16 hits. The brightest spot for the Falcons came from the right arm of freshman Liz Vrabel who gave up only two earned runs on the weekend while pitching an astounding 13 innings.

Nine of those innings came in the 10 inning opener, which saw the Falcons lose in the bottom of the 10th inning on a Amy Ligmanowski game-winning single, giving Northern Illinois a 1-0 victory.

The rest of the weekend was all Northern Illinois, as they hammered the Falcons by scores of 13-2 and 2-0.

But the Falcons don’t plan to dwell on their dismal weekend and look to today’smatchup against Cleveland State as a perfect opportunity to fine tune their game before their final weekend of MAC competition.

The Falcons should have little trouble with Cleveland State’s offense, which has no players batting over .300.

The real problem for Bowling Green may come in the form of Cleveland State’s pitching, which has kept them in most of their games and has helped them to a 15-24-1 record.

Cleveland State also may have an advantage playing at home, where they are a comfortable 7-7 on the season.

In the end, Bowling Green will be using this last non-conference game to work on their fundamentals before a three game spin with Eastern Michigan this weekend to wrap up their MAC regular season.

The first game of this non-conference double header is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. at Cleveland State’s Viking Field.