Story by Vince Ghiringhelli, UPS Sports Info

TACOMA, Wash. - Playing in their home and conference openers, the Puget Sound Loggers dropped a pair of games to the Willamette Bearcats, 4-3 and 11-4, in a Northwest Conference softball doubleheader on Saturday afternoon at Loggers Softball Field in Tacoma, Wash.

The Loggers (0-6, 0-2) went run-for-run with the Bearcats through the first three innings of the first game, keeping things deadlocked at 3-3 going into the fourth. A double by Mica Romero with one out scored Jessica Barry for what would end up being the game's winning run, as the teams went scoreless and nearly hitless for the rest of the game.

Junior pitcher Auriel Sperberg (Spanaway, Wash./Graham Kapowsin) pitched the full game for the Loggers and collected the loss, giving up nine hits and three earned runs on the day through 31 batters. Offensively, freshman shortstop Brianna Huber (Chico, Calif./Chico) had two hits in three plate appearances and sophomore P/2B Aryn Grause (Corvallis, Ore./Crescent Valley) had two RBI's.

As a team, Puget Sound had six hits and one error and had three RBI's on the day.

In the second game, Puget Sound opened up an early lead and looked like they might run away with the game. In the first inning, the Loggers had four hits and three runs, including RBI's by Grause, sophomore Anthea Aasen (Tacoma, Wash./Wilson) and Alex Usher (Carson, Wash./Stevenson) and were able to hold the lead until the Bearcats bats heated up in the fourth. Willamette scored six runs on seven hits in the fourth inning, scoring enough to win the game in that inning alone.

Puget Sound scored another run of their own in the fourth, but it was all they would manage for the rest of the game, eventually seeing the scoreboard become more and more lopsided. The Bearcats put the game completely out of reach with three runs in the top of the seventh and the Loggers rally to tie the game was over before it started, ending the game on the losing side of an 11-4 score.

While Grause started the game pitching, she was replaced in the middle of the fourth by Sperberg. Grause took the loss, and the Loggers will try and regroup tomorrow with two more against Willamette.