MILWAUKEE -- The Alverno College softball team closed out its 2010 season with a pair of Northern Athletics Conference losses to Marian University with scores of 11-3 and 13-9 at Alverno Field.

Although the score of game one ended with a lopsided 11-3 result, the Inferno (13-27, 7-17 NAC) took the game into extra innings for the second time this weekend after dropping a 15-inning bout with Edgewood College yesterday.

After throwing an arm-numbing total of 19.2 innings in yesterday's doubleheader, Inferno senior pitcher Jessica Goetz (Milwaukee, Wis./Greendale Martin Luther) recovered enough to throw through nine fairly clean innings of the first game with Marian, scattering 11 hits to help force the game into the 10th inning. At that point, the Sabres finally wore Goetz down and struck for eight runs on six hits, taking full advantage of the Inferno's lone fielding error of the game to rack up five of those runs unearned.

"Going the extra innings in the first game today gave her (Goetz) the same problems as yesterday where the hitters just caught up again," said Alverno head coach Kristin Kosobucki. "Jess gave it her all this weekend and just didn't have anything left."

The two teams began the game tied as well, tallying two runs apiece in the first inning. Goetz made the Sabres pay for racking up two runs on her in the top of the first, belting a 2 RBI double to left field to score freshman second baseman Roxanne Kresmer (South Milwaukee, Wis.), who claimed the squad's one other hit of the inning, and freshman center fielder Bre Hart (Racine, Wis./Park).

The Inferno took the 3-2 lead in the third inning as freshman Jamie Villalobos (Antioch, Ill.) and Kresmer strung together two singles and freshman catcher Stef Wilmore (Elkhart, Ind./Central) sent Villalobos home by reaching base on an error. Marian tied the score up again in the top of the sixth frame where it stayed until the Sabres' offensive flare in the 10th ended the game.

In the second half of the doubleheader Marian would be the first to score again, hitting Goetz hard for four runs on two hits including a 3 RBI home run by Jenna Whitehead (Kimberly, Wis.). Villalobos relieved Goetz in the circle at that point to secure the final out of the inning.

Facing an 8-1 deficit heading into the bottom of the fourth inning, Alverno looked to be out of comebacks for the weekend but managed to summon just one more rally to lay down seven runs in the inning to put pressure on the Sabres with an 8-8 tie.

The Inferno strung together four hits for six runs against Marian's pitcher for the fourth inning, Emily Turba (Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.), including a huge two-out, 2 RBI single by Villalobos. The Sabres returned their starting pitcher, Jamie Whitehead (Kimberly, Wis.) to the circle in hopes of thwarting any further hits by the home squad, but Kresmer and Wilmore refused to cooperate as each laced a double into right center field to tie the game before the close of the inning.

Fielding errors made the sixth inning difficult for Villalobos to pitch her way out of, as three defensive miscues led to three unearned runs with just one out on the board. Goetz returned to the circle after the third run in an effort to let her use experience to get out of the inning, which she managed to do while just one more run scored to give the Sabres the 12-8 lead.

Goetz's sacrifice fly in the bottom of the sixth would account for the final run of the season by the Inferno, sending Hart across the plate after she reached on a walk, while Marian tacked on an insurance run in the seventh to punch in the final score for the win.

"We had one bad inning in that second game where we had a few errors that led to some unearned runs and it made it hard for us to keep the score closer," Kosobucki said. "But, they did a great job being down seven runs and stringing the hits together to score seven, the most we've ever done in one inning all season. Roxanne comes to mind as a big contributor today since she came up with some great hits. Even in our last inning up to bat we had the middle of our batting order string together a couple of singles to get us in scoring position."

Kresmer led the Inferno in the batter's box, batting .500 for the day with two RBI, followed by Villalobos with three hits and two RBI in eight at-bats.

Villalobos also picked up the loss in the circle in the second game in 4.2 innings of work, giving up nine hits but just three earned runs due to the Inferno's glaring total of six fielding errors. Kosobucki was encouraged with how the freshman southpaw performed in relief of a struggling Goetz after limited action this season.

"She did a great job out on the mound," Kosobucki said. "She kept Marian's hitters off balance and really did a nice job of holding them. It was more the fielding errors that were giving her trouble getting out of innings rather than Marian's hits."

Goetz was tagged with the loss in the first game as she added a total of 12 innings pitched today to bring her weekend total to an exhausting 31.2 in the final games of her career. She also chipped in seven strikeouts on the day to finish with a career mark of 561 strikeouts and 25 wins, both good for first place by hefty margins in the program's record book.

Although errors were certainly the Inferno's Achilles heel this season with 88 total miscues, Kosobucki has been pleased with how far her squad has come since the beginning of the season and interested to see how much they will continue to progress to hopefully threaten for more wins in seasons to come.

"I think we've definitely improved defensively as the season has progressed," Kosobucki said. "At the beginning of the season we struggled with those in-between fly balls, and it's been great to see us improve and start to get those. I'm hoping we can start next year the way we finished off this year. We did a better job becoming more aggressive and coming up with key hits throughout the season. The nice thing about being a young team is that hopefully we'll only lose Jess, our one senior, and return eight of our nine players to keep on building up our core."

Although the Inferno softball team is finished playing for the year, Alverno isn't done playing host as the school will be the home of next weekend's 2010 NAC Softball Tournament beginning on Thursday, May 6, with a 3 p.m. game between the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds, yet to be determined.