USI softball struggles

 A dress rehearsal.

That’s how junior softball player Sara Loete described the team’s season.
   

After starting the season with high expectations, USI’s softball team failed to deliver, ending the season with an 18-33 record.
   

“We were expecting to do very well this season,” Loete said. “We had more talent than we’ve had in years.”
   

Unfortunately, she said, the team faced a series of misfortunes, “one after the other.”
   

“We couldn’t get over that hump. We’d get so close,” Loete said.
   

In fact, the team lost 13 of its games by a single run, something Loete said was very frustrating.
   

“You think, had we caught that ball or made that hit, our whole season could have been different,” Loete said.
  

  Despite the struggles the team saw improvements. By the end of the season, the team began to find its groove.
   

“Softball is one of those sports where we have to have everyone on the same page at once. We started getting that towards the end of the season,” Loete said.
   

“We started building momentum for next season.”
   

This was apparent in the stats.    
   

USI won nine of its last 12 games and ended the season with a three-game sweep of the University of Indianapolis.
  

  Loete hopes this is an indication of how things will go next year.
  

  She’s set her expectations much higher.
   

“We better win. That’s my expectation,” she said.
     

The team will lose only three players next year and will have three players returning as seniors, Loete being one of them.
   

Though USI will be adding seven new players to the roster, Loete said they will be counting on their veteran players a lot next year.
   

The team must finish in the top eight in the conference to make it out of regular season play and into the conference tournament.
   

This feat will become more difficult next year as the GLVC adds two new teams to the conference —  Maryville and Illinois Springfield.
   

As for this season, Loete wants to learn from it and move forward.
   

She said she was encouraged by a fortune cookie she got a few days ago.
   

“I got a fortune cookie that said failure is the dress rehearsal for success. Hopefully this year was our dress rehearsal for next year,” Loete said.