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The Weber State University softball team started its fall exhibition season on Saturday. The Wildcats split the doubleheader against Snow College with scores of 5-1 for SC and 5-3 for WSU.

The games turned out well, considering WSU only had eight practices and did not even have a full team at the practices, Head Coach Tina Johnson said.

“For everything that has been going on over the eight practices, we’ve played okay,” Johnson said. “There were a lot of good things that came of it. We got to see people play, and now we know what we need to work on.”

The Wildcats mixed up their line-up a bit. Johnson said they were trying to allow all the players to play in game-like situations and see which players had the best chemistry in certain positions. She said they did this because it was just a scrimmage match and it was a good opportunity to do so.

“I think for us, as far as team chemistry goes, just having consistency with people at certain positions will help us out,” Johnson said.

The team started out strong in the first inning, only allowing SC to get one hit and only one base-runner. The inning ended when the ball was hit to third baseman Lyndsey Minnich, who caught the hard hit line drive. The Wildcats’ turn at bat went three up three down in that first inning.

SC got their first three runs in the top of the fourth inning. The first batter walked and stole two bases and was hit in by SC’s catcher. The next two batters had hits to left center and two more players scored.

WSU scored in the bottom of the fifth inning when the bases were loaded. Center fielder Erika James had an RBI bunt and Kami Johnson scored. The final score of the first game was five to one for SC.  WSU had six hits; three of them were by Minnoch. SC had a total of nine hits.

The second game, the Wildcats came out strong, scoring James with an RBI from Minnich in the first inning. The second inning remained scoreless for both teams. The top of the third SC scored one run, but the ’Cats retaliated with three hits and two runs, bringing the score three to one.

In the top of the fourth inning, Kelsie Vallies hit a standing triple. Kami Johnson grounded it to third base, scoring Vallies and bringing the score to four to one. A hit over second base scored Sarah Clarke, bringing the score five to one for the Wildcats.

With two outs in the top of the fifth, SC scored two runs, bringing their score to three.  The game ended when SC stole second and the WSU catcher threw a player out on second base. The final score of the second game was 5-3 for WSU.

The main difference between the first and second games was due to the teams hitting, Minnich said.

“I think that first game we were really tight in the box, and in the second game we were attacking and being more aggressive and not second guessing ourselves,” Minnich said.

The team this year has nine new incoming freshmen. It affected the way the team played for its first game, Vallies said.

“The first thing I noticed is that we had jitters,” Vallies said. “We all expected that because we are a really young team.”

Besides hitting, the team will be working on talking to each other when on defense and really working as a team, Minnich said.

“Communication on defense is something we are going to work on,” Minnich said. “Just so that everyone knows where they are going in certain plays.”