By Josh Dinkelman, UNI Athletics
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — UNI softball continued the 2025 Doc Halverson Classic with a pair of matchups inside the UNI-Dome. The Cats opened the day against the Rambles, coming home with a 6-2 victory before falling to North Dakota in game two of the afternoon, 3-0.
GAME 1 | UNI 6, Loyola-Chicago 2
UNI opened day two of the Doc Halverson Classic against the Loyola-Chicago Ramblers. UNI looked to add some runs in its half of the first inning with bases loaded and no outs, but could not get any runs across the plate and the matchup stayed tied at 0-0 through one inning. The Ramblers struck first in the top of the third inning with one run before a four-run bottom half by the Panthers to answer. The half inning saw a single up the middle from Drew Hinrichs which scored Skylar Benesh and Kylee Sanders to give the Cats a 2-1 lead. Ava Smithson proceeded to drive in Addison McElrath and Adalyn Reynolds, who ran for Hinrichs, to give the Panthers a 4-1 lead after three innings of play.
Loyola-Chicago scored its second run of the afternoon on a sacrifice fly in the top of the sixth before the Panthers closed the door with a pair of runs from Paige Peterson and Sykora Smith, drove in by Sanders, gave UNI a 6-2 victory over the Ramblers in the Panthers’ first game of the day.
Sanders led UNI with three hits on four at-bats in the contest. In the circle, Anna Wischnowski finished with six strikeouts.
GAME 2 | UND 3, UNI 0
The Panthers opened the matchup with the Fighting Hawks hot with three up and three down in the top of the first inning of play. North Dakota would strike first, however, with a two-run double in the top of the third inning. Those runs were followed by a run in the top of the fourth inning to give UND an early 3-0 lead.
The Fighting Hawks held the lead the rest of the contest and wrapped up UNI’s afternoon with the 3-0 contest.