Improving Hoosiers prepare for Tulsa tourney

With tournaments in Las Vegas and Baton Rouge, La. now behind them, the IU women's softball team will travel to Oklahoma this weekend for the Holiday Inn-Select Tulsa Festival.\nLast weekend after winning their first two games in Louisiana, one of which included pitcher Megan Roark's complete game no-hitter, the Hoosiers lost their next two games against Southern University and a nationally ranked LSU team.\n"We felt like we had something to prove after going 1-4 to start the season," IU head coach Stacey Phillips said.\nOne of the problems facing IU early in the season has been lack of offense. In five of their six losses, the Hoosiers have failed to score a run.\nAt this point in the season, Phillips is happy with the progress her team is making on offense. \n"It felt really good to bounce back after that first tournament," Phillips said. "We worked a lot on our offensive game in our ten days of practice."\nIn the games IU won, they scored five, seven and eight runs.\nWhile the offense has struggled, IU's pitching staff has kept the team in games, giving the team a chance to win.\nAlthough their overall record might not show it, juniors Roark and Mariangee Bogado have been IU's bread and butter. Roark boasts a 2-2 record, including her no-hitter last weekend, and a 1.93 earned run average. She also leads the team in innings pitched with 35 and strikeouts with 31.\nBogado has yet to win a game in her two starts, but her ERA is a miniscule 1.93.\nWith a 3-6 record overall, the Hoosiers will have a chance this weekend to climb above the .500 mark with five more games in three days.\nFriday morning, IU will face off against a Drake team that is currently on a four-game winning streak. Next up for the Hoosiers will be Colorado State.\nSaturday will provide a good chance for IU to claim a couple of wins as they face two struggling teams in Western Illinois and host team Tulsa.\nWestern Illinois has a 3-2 record overall, but their offense has struggled to score. The Leathernecks' offensive leader, Maureen Troller, is batting .385, but the next-highest batting average on the team is a meager .222.\nTulsa has had trouble closing out close games with 8 of its 16 games being decided by a single run. \nThe Hoosiers will wrap up the tourney with Akron University Sunday morning.\nHoping to start a new winning streak, IU knows what it has to do this weekend to be successful.\n"Our hitting improved last weekend, but we have to work on playing our hardest all the time," freshman shortstop Jennilee Huddleston said.\nHuddleston leads the Hoosier attack with a .333 batting average and a .583 slugging percentage. \nRoark backed up her teammate's statement.\n"We just have to pick it up in Oklahoma."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Tim O'Brien at tpobrien@indiana.edu.