'Aces' wild as IU splits series with Evansville

After IU took a hard-fought 3-2 defeat in the first game, the Aces were high throughout the second contest. The Evansville Aces, that is.\nEvansville scored eight runs out of 14 hits and played flawless defense by amassing no errors and not allowing a single crimson jersey across home plate. After such a fall-off, IU was not happy with its game.\n"It's almost embarrassing for us to play as flat as we do at times, and to not execute, and do some of the things that we do for other games or when we're playing other teams," coach Sara Hayes said. "We're going to continue to fight, and hopefully we'll bring what we had in the first game to the games we have left."\nKeeping in line with the their coach's sentiment, the Hoosiers said they dropped the ball in the second contest.\n"We played really well the first game and we didn't carry that into the second game," junior Valerie White said. "They came out with a lot of fire and we had a few bad innings, and that went on to a bad game."\nSophomore pitcher Katie Witham gave up five runs off of eight hits in only 1 1/3 innings of action. Luckily for the Hoosiers, freshman Megan Roark relieved Witham and calmed the Evansville bats down, amassing seven strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings of action. Roark kept the Purple Aces scoreless until the top of the sixth when the Evansville bats awoke to add three more runs to the score and bring the eight-run mercy rule into effect. \nEvansville sophomore Casey Clutch came away with the win, bringing her to 9-8 on the year while Witham's record dropped to 6-12.\nOn the IU side, the Hoosiers could only muster four hits and no runs. IU's leading hitter was White, who amassed two hits. On the defensive end, mistakes continued to plague IU as the Hoosiers amassed three costly errors. Fielding errors is a problem that the Hoosiers plan to address before Big Ten action begins again Friday, Hayes said.\n"We played a little distracted today, we didn't handle things well, we didn't compete very well, when something happens, we tend to get outside of ourselves, and we tend to get errors," Hayes said. "This team does that, and I think that's what we can attribute those errors to, that we were a little distracted."\nThe first game of the twin bill saw the Hoosiers in better form as they came away with a close 3-2 win. Evansville struck right off the bat by scoring a run off of two hits in the top of the first. The Hoosiers answered back with a lead-off double by White in the bottom of the inning, and reached third with a sacrifice bunt by senior Heather Suca. \nSenior Stormy Hanson then singled to third base and promptly stole second, placing both runners in scoring position. Junior Abby Stark stepped up to the plate and captured a single, scoring both White and Hanson. Stark came away with only one run batted in, because of an error by the Evansville centerfielder. \nIU added another run in the bottom of the fifth with a bases-loaded walk to up its lead to 3-1. The Purple Aces proved they would not go out without a fight in the top of the seventh with a two-out rally that pulled Evansville within one run. However, the rally was not enough, as IU took the decision 3-2. \nJunior Heather Stillians pitched a complete game and came away with the win, improving her record to 8-14.\nWhile the day was tough on the morale of the Hoosiers, the team is looking ahead to the upcoming conference games this weekend, when IU travels to Michigan State and Michigan.\n"I'm disappointed that we lost so badly in the second game, but we have to keep ourselves up for Michigan," Roark said. "They are going to be tough so we have to start thinking about them and getting mentally prepared"