BATON ROUGE, La. – The SIUE softball team finished play at the LSU Tiger Classic Saturday, suffering a pair of closely-contested defeats at Tiger Park.

The Cougars (0-4) fell 5-0 to Minnesota before being edged 2-1 by Central Arkansas.

"We have to be tougher and more resilient," Head Coach Sandy Montgomery said.  "We need to be able to handle adversity against high-level competition."

SIUE got a strong all-around performance from sophomore Haley Chambers against Central Arkansas in the Cougars' second game of the day. 

In the circle, Chambers gave up just two runs on two hits in six innings of work.  She also led the way at the plate for SIUE, going 2-3 with a run scored.

"Haley definitely gave us a chance to win in her starts this weekend," Montgomery said.  "We just need to keep working on consistency and focus.  That's where our downfall was."

A two-run home run in the fifth inning from UCA's Randi Wallace turned out to be the deciding moment in the game, although the Cougars got a run back with an RBI double from Jordan LaFave in the top of the seventh inning.

The loss was the second 2-1 defeat the Cougars experienced over the weekend after losing to Oklahoma State by the same score on Friday afternoon.

"We let two wins slip away," Head Coach Sandy Montgomery said.  "We were tired (against Central Arkansas) but I'm not about to make excuses and our players can't either."

Earlier in the day, Minnesota used a pair of fourth-inning homers to propel themselves to a 5-0 victory over SIUE.  Sara Moulton tossed a complete-game shutout for the Gophers.

"We were in the game (against Minnesota), but we made some mistakes and didn't make adjustments," Montgomery said. 

Chambers started in the circle against the Gophers, allowing three earned runs on four hits while recording four strikeouts.  She finished the weekend with a 2.84 earned run average to go with 12 strikeouts.

SIUE had chances to score in all four games in Baton Rouge over the weekend, but plated just four runs combined.  Montgomery says the offense needs to improve going forward.

"We faced a couple of good pitchers this weekend but we have to be able to make adjustments at the plate," Montgomery added.  "We're better than what we showed from an offensive standpoint.  We have to get back to work heading into next weekend."    

The Cougars will return to action next weekend when they travel to Tempe, Ariz., for the Arizona State Littlewood Classic.  SIUE will play five games in a three-day span, starting with a match-up against in-state rival Illinois State Friday at 12:15 p.m. CT.