Cary’s softball team managed only one hit last Friday in the team’s 5-1 loss to Athens Drive, leaving coach Heather Abruzzino with more frustrating mistakes to mull over before the season comes to an end.

Senior Julie Alvarez felt the same way about the Imps’ consistent hitting woes, as Athens’ Callen Farringer dominated from the pitching mound.

“We caught up with the pitcher too late today,” Alvarez said. “We’ve just been struggling with out hitting recently. Our fielding has been strong, except for some bad throws today.”

The bad throws led to two errors, prompting Abruzzino to focus on eliminating the little mistakes while discussing the game with her team afterwards. She hopes that the team can shore up its season — still with four conference games and a showdown with Broughton on the schedule — by fixing the mistakes.

“We need to finish strong and limit the mistakes that keep killing us game after game, like not hitting and throwing the ball around,” Abruzzino said.

Lack of confidence has been the biggest problem, according to Abruzzino. Her team has started a vicious cycle of when things start to go wrong, the players lose confidence and are forced into making more mistakes.

“We have no confidence because when we make mistakes we tend to dwell on it the rest of the game and we're shot,” Abruzzino said.

Alvarez took it one step further, noting that not everyone gave a full effort Friday.

“It’s just frustrating when not everyone is giving 100-percent, but if we all do, then we play awesome,” Alvarez said. “It just has to happen more often.”

Cary softball returned to action on Tuesday as it hosted Tri-Eight power Middle Creek. The Lady Imps hope to fix the mistakes and turn its season around.

“It’s just a very hard conference and it’s been a very frustrating season,” Abruzzino said.