Before Sunday, Ball State softball coach Terri Laux was pleased to see the offensive production from her ball club.
The Cardinals were coming off of a Saturday night win at Mid-American Conference foe Eastern Michigan in which they collected a season-best 12 hits, including a grand slam by senior Kris Burdine, her first career homer.
Laux was pleased with the timely hitting in the first two games and felt the entire team got into the mix of the offense. But that production changed for the worse Sunday afternoon, as the Eagles crushed the Cardinals 10-0.
"Eastern came out aggressively," Laux said. "They attacked our pitching. My hat's off to them for doing to us what we did to them (on Saturday)."
The Cardinals won two of three games against the Eagles. Before Sunday's blowout, Ball State had won 11 straight against EMU.
In the first game, the Cardinals connected for four hits and allowed six. Heading into the final inning, the Cardinals found themselves down a run but Taylor Yancey and Alyssa Huffman produced the needed two runs, giving the Cardinals a 2-1 win.
Saturday night, Kris Burdine led the way with two hits, two runs and four RBI, and Mandy Snyder contributed two hits, two runs and an RBI, as the Cardinals won 8-3.
The Cardinals went on the offensive in the fourth and sixth innings.
In the fourth, Burdine's grand slam scored Jessie Hilton, Cortney Patteson and Kerri Campbell for a 5-2 lead.
They followed that inning with a three-run surge in the sixth. After a Patteson walk and Burdine single, Snyder brought home Patteson with an RBI single. Later, Clark brought home Burdine on another RBI single, and Snyder later scored on a wild pitch.
Quincy Duran returned from injury to pitch for the Cardinals in game two, allowing five hits and two runs, while striking out four in five innings.
Sunday, the Cardinals allowed 15 hits and only had four of their own. The 10-0 loss was Ball State's worst of the season. Nicki Hellem and Rachel Cleavland split evenly the number of runs given up, with Hellem giving up seven hits to Cleavland's eight.
Ball State, now 8-20 overall and 2-1 in the MAC, faces Indiana this Tuesday.
"Sitting 2-1 is not bad," Laux said. "It's good way to start off the (MAC) season."
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