The Bowling Green softball team played two consecutive doubleheaders this past weekend, getting a win and loss against Ohio on Friday and dropping both games against Akron on Saturday.
The first game against the Bobcats was a 7-2 loss. The Falcons had seven hits in the game compared to Ohio’s two.
“We’ve been struggling with our confidence,” head coach Shannon Salsburg said. “Confidence is a funny thing, because one kid gets a hit, and next thing you know, everybody feels good and you get on a roll.”
In the fourth inning of the second game, confidence came back for the Falcons behind sophomore Amanda Durham. With a teammate on base, Durham hit a two-run homerun to break a scoreless tie and put the Falcons in the lead.
“Durham was great, she was a catalyst for us,” Salsburg said. “She’s a kid that has high energy for us, and it was great to see her hit that homerun and get us going in game two.”
In the next inning, the team sent 10 batters to the plate, collecting four hits. From those hits the Falcons scored another four runs while leaving three batters on base.
The homerun by Durham was the second of her collegiate career and her second against Ohio. Her last one came last season against the same Bobcats pitcher.
“If you put the ball in play, good things happen. I was absolutely not going up to the plate thinking about hitting a homerun,” Durham said. “I was thinking ‘do your job, put the ball in play and make good things happen.’”
The Bobcats cut the lead in half with three runs in the top of the sixth, but that was the last of the scoring for Ohio. With one more Falcon run in the bottom of the same inning, the team got the split and the win, 7-3.
Junior pitcher Braiden Dillow got the win for the Falcons, allowing three runs and five hits in a little under six innings. Dillow kept Ohio scoreless through five of those innings. She is now 5-7 in the MAC.
“Braiden threw a great game. She has had her challenges in the last month, and she has had to fight through,” Salsburg said. “I’m very proud of the way she went out there and competed. That’s the Braiden that we know can help us win.”
The doubleheader against Akron went the exact opposite for the Falcons. The Zips scored a combined 14 runs in both games compared to Bowling Green’s one.
The Falcons had seven hits total in the two games.
“It was a disappointing day,” Salsburg said. “We have put ourselves into a bit of a hole in MAC play, and we need to figure out where we stand and what we can do.”
The Falcons are now 5-9 in the MAC and 14-23 overall. Their next game comes against Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne at Meserve Field on Tuesday.
