Softball (6-4) will look to improve on a 4-1 weekend as the team heads to St. Louis for the Cancer Awareness Tournament at Saint Louis University.

The Huskies are set to play four games in the tournament, opening up against the University of Missouri-Kansas City. They will finish with games against Missouri State University, Southeast Missouri State University and Saint Louis University.

“I think we were more patient at the plate, took more quality swings, were able to come up a little bit more clutch and just play better defense overall,” said head coach Christina Sutcliffe.

The Huskies played hard offensively and defensively, beating Texas State University twice and blowing out the University of Montana last week.

Sutcliffe said her team struggled defensively the first week of the season, but they improved on it. The Huskies were able to effectively close out games, not allowing teams to beat them off of careless errors.

Sophomore infielder Bekah Harnish opened up the tournament with a two-run homer.

“I think all of our long balls are always important, just kind of create a momentum killer on the other team,” Sutcliffe said. “Harnish came up huge there, be able to put us up, got us rolling in that game, we struggled to score prior against them and it was nice to see.”

Senior catcher Emily Naegele has been hot as of late, winning MAC West Player of the Week for a second consecutive week.

“I am definitely excited about it,” Naegele said. “I’m totally excited everybody around me is hitting, and that we were able to get a lot more wins this past weekend than we were the weekend before.”

Naegele went 3-3 in the opener on Friday against Texas State, hitting a home run and driving in two runs. Her best game in the tournament came against Grand Canyon University, when she had three RBIs and went 3-4.

The first pitch against University of Missouri-Kansas City will take place at 5 p.m. Friday in St. Louis.