One Lady Topper grand slam on Saturday, plus another Lady Topper grand slam on Tuesday equals two losses.
The equation doesn’t seem plausible, but it fit Western’s last two games.
Western (14-20, 2-9 Sun Belt Conference) fell Tuesday to Evansville 6-5, despite hitting its second grand-slam in two games and outhitting its opponent 12-4, extending its losing streak to four games.
“The grand slam definitely put us in the position to make a comeback,” coach Tyra Perry said. “But mental errors on the bases and not playing aggressive didn’t allow us to get it done.”
The Lady Toppers continued their unhappy trend of giving up early runs when the Aces put three runs on the board in the bottom of the first inning.
Western has given up a total of 14 first inning runs during the four-game losing streak.
In the fourth inning, Evansville scored three more runs, making the score 6-0.
The Lady Toppers prevented the shutout in the fifth inning when freshman pinch hitter Sara Williams drove in sophomore designated hitter Shannon Smith.
The second grand slam in two games came off the bat of sophomore shortstop Kelsey McCauley in the sixth inning to cut the deficit to one, but Evansville held off the Lady Topper charge.
“All I was thinking about was driving in runs, but the pitch was there and I was able to hit it out,” McCauley said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t win, so the hit didn’t really mean much.”
Junior pitcher Jennifer Kempf (5-8) tallied the loss despite giving up only four hits in her six innings of work.
Perry said that she wasn’t happy at all following the game because they lost on mental errors. The Lady Toppers recorded eight more hits than the Aces and only one error.
“It’s been the same thing in our losses,” she said. “It hasn’t been the other team outplaying us, it hasn’t been something not bouncing the wrong way. It’s been in our own hands.”
Junior third baseman Rebecca Horesky said that the major mental errors Tuesday came on the base path.
“If we play like we’ve been playing lately it’s going to be hard to win, but if we play like we know we can then we should be all right,” she said.
Western returns home to play Morehead State in a doubleheader starting at 2 p.m. today at the WKU Softball Complex.
Reach Corey Ogburn at sports@chherald.com.
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