North Dakota began the day off, dropping a 7-4 decision to Harvard before falling 9-4 against Eastern Michigan.

“Today we had a nice outing, we need to shore up our defense a little, but we are coming along,” head coach Eric Oakley said. “Our goal is conference success and these games in Florida are preparing us for that.”

Megan Hedstrom pitched in her third-consecutive game to start the day against Harvard. After starting the first inning with two walks and an error at third base, UND got out of the inning without conceding any runs and Hedstrom went on to retire the next nine batters she faced.

“Hedstrom's performance so far this weekend has been important to us, since our pitching staff is not 100% right now,” Oakley said.

Nicole Babrowski scored in the third inning to give UND its first lead of the weekend. After getting on base with a single and advancing to second thanks to a sacrifice bunt by Taylor Hansen, D Jantzer hit one up the middle to bring home Babrowski.

Harvard answered back in the fifth inning scoring four runs to take a 4-1 lead. However, in the bottom of the sixth, North Dakota put together its best inning of the tournament so far to tie the game.

With two outs, Emily Bell was walked and Elizabeth Cudney came in to pinch hit who then hit a single to center field. Mazi Joslin and Jackie Lilek came in to pinch run for Bell and Cudney. Harvard then put in Gabrielle Ruiz to pitch, but Caralyn Chewning homered to bring the score to 4-4.

Unfortunately, Harvard went on to score three more runs in the top of the seventh to secure the 7-4 win.

In the second game of the day Hedstrom started again, but only pitched 1.2 innings before Sophie Pratt came in to finish out the game.

Eastern Michigan opened the scoring in the second inning, putting up five runs. With two outs in the top of the third, Amanda Johnson got UND on the board with a home run to right field.

The Eagles would then go on to score four more runs by the end of the fourth inning. The North Dakota pitching then shut down the Eagles for the rest of the game as the offense started to chip away at the eight-run lead.

In the top of the fifth, with two runners in scoring position, Kim Granata singled to right field to score Babrowski. After a pop-up to second base, a throwing error by the Eagles allowed Rachael Waynick to score, bringing the score to 9-3 before the end of the inning.

In the top of the sixth, Cudney scored to further cut into the Eastern Michigan lead. In the seventh, a single by Toni Schutte scored Johnson to bring the score to 9-5. Unfortunately, Eastern Michigan closed out the inning without any more North Dakota scoring to end the game.

North Dakota closes out the FGCU tournament tomorrow morning with a game against Villanova at 8 a.m. (CT).