At The Plate: Stumbling out of the gate into the conference schedule, the University of Mary Softball team will host three teams at home this week after heading out on the road in the previous week. Bemidji State University will stop by on Tuesday, March 31; Southwest Minnesota State University will come to town on Friday, April 3; and the University of Sioux Falls will pay on visit on Saturday, April 4.

For The Record: U-Mary (12-19, 1-4 NSIC) had a rough week with the weather in their home opener against Minot State Univeristy and the wind followed them down to Nebraska. The Marauders lost the home run derby to Minot State, 15-2, before weather cancelled the second game; #18 Augustana College took both games of the doubleheader on Saturday, 4-0 and 9-2; and U-Mary finally got their first win in conference against Wayne State College with a 3-2 victory, but fell in the second game, 1-0, in nine innings. Bemidji State (12-10, 3-3 NSIC) swept University of Minnesota Crookston, split with Upper Iowa University, and was swept by Winona State University last week. Southwest Minnesota (13-11, 2-2 NSIC) dropped both games of their doubleheader to Northern State University but came back with two wins over Minnesota State University Moorhead and will host Concordia University-St. Paul on Monday, March 31. Sioux Falls (16-8, 2-2 NSIC) easily handled MSU Moorhead but had a 20-17 barn burner loss to Northern State followed by a 5-1 loss to the Wolves.

In The Past: The Marauders improved to 19-1 against Bemidji State all-time after a sweep of last year's games while in Bemidji; fell to 7-10 against Southwest Minnesota State after dropping two games in Marshall, Minn., the previous year; and moved to 2-2 against Sioux Falls after splitting the contests in Sioux Falls last year.

Last One Up: U-Mary had to deal with the weather in a few games last week. Minot State turned their game into a home run hitting contest while the Marauders struggled to deal with the cold in a 15-2 loss. Then U-Mary went out on the road to take on #18 Augustana and dropped the first game, 4-0, before falling in the second game, 9-2. To round out the weekend, the Marauders took on Wayne State College, while dealing with gusts of wind up to 40 miles per hour, and pulled out the win in the first game, 3-2, with some timely offense from the usual suspects, including another team-leading home run from Taylor Mendez, but lost a 1-0 pitcher's duel in the second game that ended up going nine innings, all of which we pitched by Nena Dudley.

On Deck: The Marauders will make up the second game against Minot State on Tuesday, April 7, at 3:00 PM, before heading back out on the road to take on MSU Moorhead on Wednesday, April 8, at 2:00 PM, Winona State on Saturday, April 11, at 1:00 PM, and finishing out the trip with games against Upper Iowa on Sunday, April 12, at 12:00 PM.

For more information, check out the full PDF release here.

#marauders#