Facing its toughest competition in Tucson to date, the Dutch committed 6 errors, struck out 13 times, left 10 runners on base and were caught stealing 3 times, and that all added up to a 6-2 loss to the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse. Coach George Wares says that it was a bit of the snowball effect, especially the poor defense.
“A lot of people call it momentum, I call it collective confidence, and our collective confidence was getting rattled. Once that happens that there’s at least a subconscious thought. But if you want to find something positive it’s that we did strike out 13 times and we did make 6 errors and we were marginally still in the game and still had a chance to win.”
With only about 20 minutes to get the sour taste out of their mouths, the Dutch had to bounce right back against Dennison of Ohio, and the shaky play continued as Central dug a 3-0 hole thru two innings. Into the teeth of a strong Tucson wind, Karlee Rock belted two home runs and the Dutch scored the next 11 runs to win 11-3 in 5 innings. The Dutch are 7-3 on the season, and will have another doubleheader today, first against Dennison then against Marion. The game against Dennison starts at 3:30 Iowa time, and will be our final webcast of the trip live on www.kniakrls.com on our KNIA2 stream.