CARBONDALE, Ill. – Despite an early advantage and extra base hits from Katie Keller and Ellis Erickson, the Northern Illinois University softball team fell 5-4 to Eastern Illinois University in their opening game of the SIU Tournament at Charlotte West Stadium Sunday morning.

NIU staked a 4-1 lead through five innings, but saw their advantage dwindle and unfortunately disappear in the sixth and seventh frames as the Panthers responded with a pair of runs in each inning respectively.

"If we just clean up a few little things the outcome of this game would've been different," Huskies head coach Christina Sutcliffe said. "We just need to make a couple of corrections for tomorrow and go to work."

As the home team on the scoreboard, NIU held a 4-3 advantage going into the top of the seventh, but the Panthers countered with a two-out, two-RBI single to center field to capture the lead. NIU did threaten in the home half of the seventh after they loaded the bases with two outs on a Kara Apato single and two walks, but Eastern's left fielder made a diving catch to end the threat and ultimately the game.

"We still had a chance at the end with bases loaded, but their left fielder made a great catch," Sutcliffe said. "I felt we did a nice job early in our at bats of getting on base, but then we started taking way too big of swings once runners got in scoring position so we just need to go back and take a breath and have better quality at bats."

NIU took a 1-0 lead in the second inning when Erickson connected for a double and scored on Amberly Rodriguez' single to center field. Rodriguez then came around for the second run in the frame when Bianca Barone reached on a muffed throw from the first baseman.

After Eastern plated a run in the fifth to cut the lead in half, the Huskies responded with two more runs in the bottom half of the frame after Apato walked and scored when Mackenzie Mahy reached on an error from the third baseman. Mahy stayed alive on the base paths as she advanced to third on a throwing error from the first base man and came home. In all, EIU had four errors.  

"We took advantage of a few of their defensive errors, ran aggressive on the bases and were able to put some runs up early," Sutcliffe said. "Claire (Norred) did a nice job of taking us into the sixth but unfortunately we couldn't finish the game out."

Norred worked five solid innings in the pitcher's circle and struck out two batters. Sophomore Emily Dato then came on in relief and tossed the final two innings, fanning two batters and walking none. Barone led the offense with a pair of hits while Katie Keller connected for a double.

NIU (6-7) resumes action in the tournament tomorrow morning when it faces EIU again at 10 am, followed by a 12:15 pm contest against SIU-Edwardsville to close it out.

"We want to change the result tomorrow and leave no doubt who the better team is," Sutcliffe said. "So we need to come back and put some runs up early in the game to bounce back."
 
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