The Missouri Southern women’s softball team is steadily improving. The Lions had a busy week going 4-6 in the last 10 games.

Southern took on rival Pittsburg State on April 7 and split with the Gorillas, losing the first game 3-0, but winning the nightcap 3-2.

The Lions continued play on April 9 when they traveled to Emporia State University to take on the Hornets.

Emporia State stayed undefeated in conference play, easily handling Southern with 11-4 and 8-0 victories. Emporia State is currently steamrolling through the conference on a 22-game winning streak.

The Lions turned around and traveled to Washburn University the following day on April 10, and this time the Lions came away with a 3-0 victory in the first game, but followed it up with a 4-3 loss in the second of the doubleheader.

In the victory, catcher Angie Turner went 2 for 3 with 2 RBI’s, and is currently hitting .348 on the season. Megan Roark leads the team with a .349 average as of Wednesday.

Southern followed up with another 1-0 victory on Tuesday against Northeast University. The Lions scored their only run in the fourth inning to back Whitney Clute’s seven scoreless innings, only allowing four hits en route to victory.

The Lions would follow that game with a 7-2 loss later in the day.

“We’ve had good pitching our last five or six outings,” Lions Head Coach Bill Gray said. “Both Whitney [Clute] and Tiffany [Bennett] have continued to keep us in ball games. If they do that we’ll win a lot of those games.”

The Lions closed out the week playing another doubleheader with Northeastern on Wednesday. The Lions fell in the opener 10-2, but in the second game the Lions’ bats came alive.

With the game tied up 9-9 in the home half of the sixth inning, Turner came to bat with the bases loaded.

With one swing of the bat Turner had herself her sixth home run of the season and put the Lions up 13-9. Northeastern would put a run up in the top of the seventh, but a stellar double play from Krista Bomak shut down the Riverhawk rally.

“I’m glad I got that hit,” Turner said after the victory. “It felt good and I was glad I could help us get a win.”

Over the last week, Southern has improved its record to 15-29-1 overall and is 4-8 in the MIAA.

Southern is eight games back and currently sits in eighth place in conference. Southern is still in playoff contention, but the Lions will need to win a few of their upcoming games against conference opponents.

“As of right now we have eight conference games left,” said Gray. “I think we need to win at least half of those. That would give us eight conference wins and last year we made the conference tournament with nine.”

Southern will now travel to Maryville for a MIAA crossover.

The Lions will play six games from today to Sunday. 

The Lions will play Northwest Missouri and Washburn today. Missouri Western and Truman will be the Lion’s opponents tomorrow, and the Lions will then close out on Sunday with games against Fort Hays State University Tigers and the University of Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks.