NIU softball coach Dee Abrahamson had a much shorter stay in Macomb over the weekend than she had planned.

The Huskies plunged into the three-day double-eliminaton National Invitation Championship as pre-tourney favorites, but were weeded out Friday (first) night with a pair of shutouts.

Colorado State trounced NIU with a 5-0 score in the 16-team tournament, after which Toledo upset the Huskies 2-0.

“We expected to stay longer,” Abrahamson said. “We went there wanting to do better than we did. We had some good base running, but we didn’t hit well enough to win, and we weren’t able to get anyone across the plate.

“It takes a great offense to help the defense, and we didn’t have the offense to take the pressure off of the defense. We had a good-hitting team last year, and we need to establish that again. I think everyone’s anxious to spend some time in the batting cages and get some hitting in this week.”

Abrahamson attributed partial blame of the shutout to the squad’s “experimenting” defense. Only one player besides the pitchers played the regular position they did last year.

The Huskies are trying to patch up the missing spots, as the team lost four seniors last season. And since the fall season doesn’t effect the record, the women’s boss said now is the time to figure out who is going to play where.

“We want to have some type of depth chart to practice with during winter and spring,” Abrahamson said, “so we want to try and take advantage of the fall season since it doesn’t affect our record.

“Everyone played to win, and to impress us (for positions), But this wasn’t a great weekend for (the team) to show us what they wanted to do. There are definitely some corrections we need to make.”

NIU’s two-time All-America Jill Justin had the only two hits for the Huskies in the first game. The downfall of the contest began when a bad-news third inning left the Huskies giving up a two-run homer, along with committing four errors. Pitcher Beth Schrader was handed the loss, dropping her to 1-2.

The Huskies started the second contest promisingly, with bases loaded situations twice. However, NIU let 11 runners die on base, and again could only connect on two hits. Seniors Susie Conway and Kathy Bulow singled the only hits for the Huskies. Pitcher Shari Edwards received the loss.

“With the caliber of competition at the tournament, anyone could have won it,” Abrahamson said. “If we had played up to our potential, we would have stayed longer.”