Winona State University got two straight wins on Friday against Saginaw Valley State University and Ferris State University, scoring 7 – 3 and 7 – 0 respectively. They started well but things did not go well after this.

Winona State played against Purdue Northwest on Saturday, Feb. 25, where they lost by 3 – 1. On Sunday, Feb. 26, they lost to Grand Valley State University with a score of 7 – 0 and to William Jewell College (Mo.) with a score of 4 – 1.

In the winning match against Saginaw Valley State, Abbie Hlas is the only one who has a triple (3B) from the Winona State team. No other player managed another 3B but Saginaw Valley State player Paige Kolinski made a Doubles (2B). Winona State player Carly Engelhardt had a home run (HR) and Teaghen Amwoza had a sacrifice fly (SF) in the match.

On the other match of the day against Ferris State, Abby Smith was the pitcher against Gray K. In this match the big names were from the Warriors as Ferris State scored zero points. Marissa Mullen and Macy Brodin had one 2B each and Abbie Hlas had three 2B alone. Engelhardt had one 3B and Brodin had a sacrifice bunt (SH).

Last week we have seen that in the early matches of the week, Winona State is like a star but as  the week progresses their light dims.

Winona State head coach Gregory Jones said, “I thought the team played well all weekend. It was a very good start to the season against some strong competition. I thought by the end of the weekend we were a little tired, which was to be expected for the first weekend.”

Maybe for that week, the situation was covered. But now the question comes up; is the Warrior softball team always tired by the end of the week? And if this goes on, will they be able to qualify for the playoffs?

Maybe we do not have an answer for the first question, but we do have an answer for the second question. As history speaks the Warriors have qualified for the playoffs each year they played. Still, a doubt stays there as we do not know if they are ready this year or not.

Coach Jones is always there to back up his players. This time he blamed a lot of games and mentioned it like a marathon.

“We still have a month to go before we start Conference play.  Softball is so different than other sports because of the volume of games we play.  We start our season with 32 straight road games and we start with 26 Non-conference games. It is truly a marathon,” Jones said.

Next week Winona State will participate in the Spring Games. On Friday, March 3 they will play against the California University of Pennsylvania at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)  and against Dominican College (NY) at 3:30 p.m. On Saturday, March 4, and Sunday, March 5 they have two games each day. On Saturday, at 8 a.m. they will face Rogers State and at 10:30 a.m. they will face Clarion University. On Sunday, they will face Ferris State University at 10 a.m. and Holy Family University at 12:30 p.m. 

History says Winona State will have an advantage over all the teams except Rogers State. They are the only one who has more victories against Winona State in head-to-head matches.