The Knox Prairie Fire softball team suffered a close defeat in their game against the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Blugolds, losing by a final score of 10-8. Despite holding a late lead, the Prairie Fire were unable to maintain their position, and they lost the game as a result.

Knox got off to one of their most encouraging starts of the year in the bottom of the first inning. After letting up an initial run to the Blugolds, the Prairie Fire knocked in four runs in their part of the inning. Leila Rouhani played a big role in the inning, smacking a triple that drove in two runs. After allowing four more runs in the next two innings, the Prairie Fire answered back with four more runs of their own in the fourth and fifth innings. Rouhani and Britney Salinas each stroked doubles during these frames, with each of them having their best offensive performances of the season to date. Unfortunately for the Prairie Fire, although they carried a three run lead into the sixth inning, UW-Eau Claire would storm back to bring the score to 8-7 thanks to some hard hit balls. In the seventh, the Blugolds scored another three runs, and the Prairie Fire were unable to muster any offense to come back in the bottom half of the inning.

The Knox Prairie Fire lost their second game of their Saturday doubleheader, being defeated 8-0 by the Loras College Duhawks. The loss leaves their season record at 1-10, and ends their time in Florida for The Spring Games.

After an exhausting first game of the day, the Prairie Fire seemed to be struggling to keep up with the speed with which the Duhawks played. All of Loras' eight runs came within the first two innings, with constant singles and doubles finding all the gaps they needed to do their damage, while the team stole four bases, as well. Mimi Schweizter had a good day pitching in relief for Knox, going 3.1 innings while letting up no runs and striking out one, her best pitching performance of the year. Offensively, Schweitzer and Hipp had the only hits on the day for the Prairie Fire, with little momentum otherwise occurring. As a result, Knox was unable to put up much of a fight throughout the game.

"We really looked good at the beginning of game one, probably the best we have all year," said head coach Erin Rutledge. "We just gave it away at the end. It's not the Florida trip that we wanted, but we did have glimpses of how good we can be when we put it all together. We will head home and get back to work."

The Prairie Fire will start a six game homestand next Saturday when host Mount Mary University in a doubleheader.