Photo by Samantha Davis. Marshall shortstop Jennifer Lee looks to throw the softball to first base after fielding a ground ball in a Big South Conference game against St. Peter Tuesday night at the Marshall softball complex. The Tigers fell to the Saints 9-1.

MARSHALL — St. Peter’s consistent hitting backed behind a strong pitching performance was too much for the Marshall softball team to find an answer to in a 9-1 Big South conference loss Tuesday night.

The Saints kept hitting throughout the night, and scored two runs in four of the seven innings. Auden Anderson pitched the whole night with 14 strikeouts and no walks to challenge Marshall offensively as well.

Alissa Moen was in the circle the entire game for the Tigers, and finished with two strikeouts and one walk, while allowing six earned runs.

“Alissa has been strong our last four games. Two games on Saturday, and last night she threw well again, and then tonight. She’s on a roll here,” Marshall softball head coach Stacey Baedke said. “It’s fun to see, because she’s put in a lot of time outside of season. I’m really proud of her.”

Collectively, Marshall finished with four hits and seven errors, while St. Peter tallied 11 hits with a pair of errors.

Claire Kruse, Sara Dallmann, Moen and Jaylah Morgan accounted for the four Marshall hits, with Kruse accounting for the run on a Morgan RBI.

St. Peter first got on the board with two runs in the second inning with a runner reaching home from third off a single base hit, and another off a sacrifice single at first.

With another runner on third, Moen struck out the batter for the final out to stop the Saints from putting the Tigers into a large deficit early on.

Marshall brought the game within one in the bottom of the second inning, sparked by a single line drive from Moen to center field.

Kruse stepped in to courtesy run for the pitcher, and reached home after stealing second base and charging for home plate off a Morgan RBI single with a fly ball out to right field.

“Some games we struggle with even putting the bat on the ball, and it seems like we do better with faster pitchers,” Baedke said. “They [Marshall] were able to put the ball in place several times tonight, so that was really good, and St. Peter has a great pitcher.”

Despite the good momentum to start, St. Peter brought in another two runs in both the third and fourth innings to build a 6-1 edge.

The Saints’ two runs in the third came from a pair of line drives out to center field, both of which reached second base on the same play off an overthrow to second and an attempted throw-out at home, respectively. The two hits scored a runner on both occasions.

Although the Saints scored one more in the fifth inning, for a 7-1 lead, Marshall showed a string of good defensive plays prior to the run.

A pop fly fair-ball infield catch from Morgan at first base and Jennifer Lee fielding a hard ground ball at shortstop and throwing a runner out at first gave the Tigers two quick outs to begin the inning.

“She [Lee] has been playing phenomenal for us,” Baedke said. “Such a good attitude, athletic girl, and I’m very excited for her future, because she does such a nice job for us.”

St. Peter’s run was reached from third base when Marshall attempted to get the last out with a force at first off an infield hit, but was dropped.

Moen continued to throw competitive pitches and the Tigers made contact for a few hard hits. Yet, St. Peter’s defense remained tight over the final two innings to prevent Marshall from embarking on a comeback while scoring two more in the top of the seventh to seal the win.

Tuesday was the second meeting between the Saints and Tigers, where St. Peter walked away with a close 4-2 win on April 15.

“That was probably one of the best games we played, so we wanted to feed off of that … Last night [Monday] was a struggle for us with consecutive errors [committed 13 errors in a 14-3 loss to Willmar], but tonight we talked about, ‘Let’s just have fun and control the controllables,'” Baedke said. “Fielding the ball, throwing the ball and hitting the ball … If our mindset is to do those things, then we can do better and we did that tonight.”

Marshall (0-13) will next look for its first season win when it travels to take on Tri-City United in a doubleheader on Thursday, with a 4:30 p.m. first pitch and the second game to follow after.

“We are actually going to be missing three of our players due to school events [on Thursday],” Baedke said. “So, we are just going to have fun and do what we can do best.”