"I'm very disappointed, because I thought hitting would be one of our strengths," Wright City Coach Fred Ross said. "Their pitcher did a good job of moving the ball around, and we were way out in front of a lot of those pitches. She also got us with a lot of easy pop flies." His team managed just three singles the entire game, with Jessica Jones reaching first base twice and Rhonda Bishop collecting the other hit. Early in the contest, Wright City continuously popped the ball into shallow right field but was cut off on each occasion by quick and timely defense. Even when the Wildcats did put the ball into play, they couldn't catch enough breaks to advance their runners. "We had a couple of chances of our own, but just couldn't execute very well," Ross said. "It's still early, so we'll work on that." Several momentous plays that would have given Ross' team new life were negated by umpires. In particular, a Louisiana runner was ruled safe at third base after Bishop's effort to make an urgent tag. "They made a couple of close plays that we didn't get the call on, and that affected us a little bit," Ross said. "But we made some pretty good defensive plays also on our own half. We'll battle back and get after it to prepare for next week." Sophomore pitcher Katelyn Christopher struck out six batters on Monday, but the runners who made it on base found ways to advance. Louisiana had just five hits, but was quick enough and caught the necessary breaks to score all three of its runs. The Bulldogs plated their first run in the second inning and followed up by scoring a run in each of the fourth and fifth innings. "They got some timely hitting with two outs and just played a really sound game all around," Ross said. Each time, Wright City quickly cleaned up its acts but did not have an answer at the plate. "We're going to have to be a little more aggressive at the plate," Ross said. "We took off a lot of strikes. Being the first game, they need to figure out what the umpire is calling after the first couple of batters and adjust to that. I think that's a reason we were staying in front of the ball, because we weren't adjusting to that strike zone." He said the loss was made less painful by the fact it was a not a league duel. They did not sacrifice a game in the Eastern Missouri Conference. "You hate to start with a loss, but it was a non-conference game," Ross said. "Otherwise, we played pretty well defensively, and we've got a whole week to adjust. We'll do some live pitching drills and get the girls moving and hitting and really pick it up from there." Wright City's next game will be at home against Silex on Tuesday at 5 p.m.