Recap: @bearssoftball Gets Out-Hit by Jayhawks

Thursday, March 15

Lawrence, KS

2 pm

University of Northern Colorado

14-14

Kansas

18-5

Northern Colo.

Kansas

3/15/2018 6:03:00 PM | Softball

Box Score

Northern Colorado dropped its first game of the Rock Chalk Challenge

By: Matthew Kushar, UNCBears.com

LAWRENCE, Kas. - Northern Colorado opened its play in the Rock Chalk Challenge with an 8-3 loss to host Kansas on Thursday afternoon. UNC (14-14) struggled from the circle and was unable to produce enough offense to beat the Jayhawks.

Valerie Vidal was in the circle to start the Rock Chalk Challenge for the Bears and she was opposed by the Jayhawks Andie Formby. UNC had singles in the first two innings of the game, but could not string any more hits together.

After Vidal recorded a one-two-three inning in the first, Kansas got to her with a two-run homer from Sam Dellinger in the bottom of the second and gave the Jayhawks the 2-0 lead.

UNC put a pair of runners on in the top of the second after Sophia Taylor led off with a single, followed by an Emma Brockmann walk. The Bears lineup was unable to come up with the timely hit to bring either runner into score and Jayhawks maintained their advantage.

Kansas would then extend the lead in the bottom of the third when Tarin Travieso lead-off the inning with a home run and the Jayhawk lead was up to 3-0.

The Bears found their bats in the top of the fourth inning and Jordyn Wiatrak started with a single to right center. Cheyenne Talmadge pinch ran for Wiatrak and Kenzie Kudrna would then reach on a fielding error to put two on with two outs. Taylor would get her second hit of the day to load the bases for UNC and Madi Schmidt managed to draw a walk ang get UNC on the board as Talmadge came into score. Mady Young would deliver a two-out single up the middle and scored Taylor and Kudrna. UNC tied the game at three and seemed to have found its hitting.

Kelli Kleis was called on to relieve Vidal in the circle and was able to avoid any runs in the inning after putting the lead-off hitter on base.

The Jayhawks would blow the game open in the bottom of the fifth against Kleis, producing four runs on three hits to give them a 7-3 lead over the Bears. Kleis was knocked out of the inning and replaced by Chandler Elsner.

UNC's lineup could not match the production from Kansas' hitters and Fombay closed out the Bears in the top of the seventh for an 8-3 victory.

Northern Colorado managed to get nine hits in the game, but could only manufacture three runs from them. Kansas had 11 hits and used them to score eight runs. The Bears also could not recover from the four-run, fifth inning form the Jayhawks.

In their words

Shana Easley, Head Coach
"We are going to keep focusing on our own adjustments to create a different outcome than we had today. Offensively we adjusted and ended up scoring by just putting the ball into play and forcing the defense to make plays. We can certainly compete and adjust better defensively. We got away from our fundamentals on a few plays with runners on base and that ended up costing us."

Notes

Sophia Taylor had her first multi-hit game of the season with three singles and also scored one run for the Bears. For the year, Taylor is batting .192, with 10 runs scored.
Mady Young went 2-for-3 against the Jayhawks and matched her season high with two RBIs in the game. Young is batting .261 on the season with eight RBIs this season.
Northern Colorado pitchers gave up multiple home runs for the fifth time this season, all of which are losses. Opponents have hit 17 home runs against the Bears, while UNC has hit only nine this season.

Up Next
Northern Colorado will be back on the field tomorrow at 9 A.M. to play Murray State and will follow that game with a matchup against Western Illinois at 11:30 A.M. Live stats for the games are provided by KUAthletics.com and you can follow the games live on Twitter with @bearssoftball.