The strange Wisconsin weather cost the softball team another pair of games Sunday, as the cold weather and snowstorm forced the cancellation of the second day of the Eau Claire Fastpitch Tournament at Carson Park.

The Blugolds have now had 10 games canceled or rescheduled this season due to inclement weather.

“It’s disappointing and frustrating,” coach Leslie Huntington said. “These are games we needed to play and wanted to play.”

The decision to cancel the second day of the tournament was mostly hers, Huntington said.

Junior pitcher Kim Czapla, who has a 6-7 record this year, agreed that the cancellations have been frustrating.

“It’s kind of shocking that it snowed,” she said. “We’ve been able to play all our games for a while.”

The Blugolds opened the tournament on their home field with two losses to conference opponents on Saturday, losing to UW-River Falls and UW-Superior.

Sophomore shortstop Emilee Planert got the Blugolds off to a good start for the tournament, hitting a home run to lead off the game against River Falls.

The Blugolds added another run when junior Jane Taragos doubled home junior Jannah Grinnell, and junior pitcher Jessie Sharpe carried a shutout into the sixth inning.

But the Blugolds committed two errors in the sixth, allowing River Falls to score three runs and take the opener 3-2.

“It was tough to lose those games,” Huntington said. “We should have won the River Falls game. We made some mistakes late in the game that cost us.”

In the second game, Superior got to Czapla for 10 hits, the most she has allowed this season, to earn a 5-2 win over the Blugolds.

“It wasn’t one of my best games,” Czapla said. “Superior did what they needed to do to win.”

Jannah Grinnell and senior Megan Grinnell scored the two runs for the Blugolds against Superior. Megan Grinnell scored the second run on a suicide squeeze by junior Brenda Westermann in the third inning.

With weather permitting this week, the Blugolds will play a pair of double headers against conference opponents, starting with a set Tuesday at UW-Stout.

Wednesday, the Blugolds travel to Superior for a pair against the Yellowjackets, followed by a WIAC cluster tournament this weekend in Superior. The Blugolds went undefeated in the first cluster tournament, which was hosted by UW-Whitewater April 13-14.

Huntington said she isn’t concerned about the large number of games in such a short period of time.

“Our schedule has been pretty similar to this all year,” she said. “We just hope the weather cooperates.”

Czapla said the team needs to come out strong against its conference opponents.

“We need to play like we did at Whitewater,” she said. “We have to play consistently through the whole game.”