The Peacock softball team picked up another split at the 2017 Teri Mathis-Zenner Memorial Tournament in Joplin, Mo. on Sunday afternoon. Upper Iowa defeated Nebraska-Kearney for the second time this season, earning a 9-4 win in the morning before wrapping up the tournament with a 10-0 loss in five innings to the Northwest Missouri State Bearcats. UIU finishes 2-2 in Missouri to finish the tournament, as is now 4-10 on the season.

Upper Iowa will head back to Fayette for their home opener of 2017, and will host three games against the Rangers of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. The Peacocks and Rangers will play a single game on Saturday, March 11 at 3 p.m. before playing a Sunday doubleheader on March 12 beginning at 12 p.m. at the Eischeid Softball Complex.

Game One
Erin Drahozal got the start in the circle for the first time this season, and would go four innings against Nebraska-Kearney in game one on Sunday morning. Game one would go back and forth for the majority of the game before the Peacocks pulled away late.

Upper Iowa, the visitors on the scoreboard, pushed across a run right away in the top of the first. Sammy Garrett pushed an RBI-single through to score Riley Kruel to take a 1-0 advantage. Nebraska-Kearney would have an answer in the home half of the inning, after Molly Stern laced a solo home run and the Lopers put together an RBI-single to take a 2-1 lead.

Jordyn Brennan answered with an RBI-single in the second to tie the game, and would put the ball in play in the fourth inning as well, forcing an error to score a run to take a 3-2 lead. The freshman would score later in the inning after Garrett tallied her second RBI after another base knock. Upper Iowa held a 4-2 lead after four innings, but UNK would not go away.

Back-to-back RBI-singles tied the game in the bottom of the fifth inning for the Lopers, after Upper Iowa made a pitching change to Courtney Clayberg. Clayber would, however, get some offensive support to earn the win. Sami Kay Shafranski and Garrett put together back-to-back RBI-singles to give the Peacocks a two-run, 6-4 lead in the sixth inning. Julia Buffington put the ball in play a few batters later, and an error on UNK scored Shafranski and Garrett to give Upper Iowa an 8-4 advantage. Garrett reached on another Loper error in the seventh inning to score another run and UIU would hold on for a 9-4 victory.

Kruel, Shafranski, and Brennan each totaled 2 hits on the day to lead the Peacocks. Drahozal tossed four innings of four-hit ball, allowing two earned runs to earn the no-decision. Despite Clayberg allowing a pair of runs in the fifth, the Peacock right-hander earns the win after pitching three innings allowing two earned on five hits.


Game Two
Northwest Missouri State and Upper Iowa were scoreless after an inning, but the Bearcat bats quickly came alive to bust open the game. An RBI-single, groundout, and fielder's choice allowed NMSU to score three runs in the second off Peacock pitcher Emily Kisch. Kisch, coming off her eight-inning effort on Saturday, struggled on Sunday afternoon to keep the Bearcats off the board.

A solo home run, an RBI-single, and a bases-loaded walk pushed across three more runs in the third inning to give Northwest Missouri State a 6-0 lead, and the Peacock bats struggled to get anything going against Bearcat pitcher Hoi Posegate. UIU totaled just two hits in five innings against Posegate, and never threated to score.

Kisch tossed 2.1 innings of six-run softball, allowing eight hits in the process. Clayberg came in for one inning of relief, and Drahozal finished in the circle, tossing 1.2 innings to close the game. A four-run fourth inning for the Bearcats put the nail in for NMSU, after a single and a three-run home run basically ended the game. All together, the Bearcats totaled 10 runs on 13 hits in the five-inning game.