Sentinel photo by MIKE GOSS Juniata's Destiny Yohn puts a tag on Upper Dauphin's Makenna Schaffner on a close play at third base.

MIFFLINTOWN — The Juniata softball team lost 20-1 to Upper Dauphin in three innings during a chilly afternoon on Tuesday.

Errors were a problem for the Indians, as many balls were dropped or misplayed. “We got to slow our brains down on the defensive side of the ball,” Juniata coach Craig Bubb said. “You can’t win a high school varsity game kicking the ball around like we did. You know, we work on it literally 75 percent of practice. I’m kind of at a loss for what happened out there.”

Addison Rutherford pitched the first two innings for the Indians, giving up seven runs. Kaylnn Brown replaced her in the third which resulted in a 13-run inning for the Trojans.

“Pitchers were throwing strikes, they were putting the ball in play,” Bubb said. “And we just weren’t playing defense behind them. We gotta clean it up, get focused tomorrow. Because we got a long week, we have three more games this week. So it will be a heavy defensive practice tomorrow.”

Sophia Smith was a positive at the plate going 2-for-2 with two singles and scoring the lone Juniata run. Destiny Yohn also had a single and a walk. “We are looking for Sophia to give us some leadership as a captain. She struggled a little bit in the field, and she didn’t let it affect her at the plate. Hopefully, we can get her bat hot, and kind of spark the rest of the offense here.”

Juniata (0-4) is still looking for their first win. They will play at Greenwood at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. “We need to catch the ball, starts with that,” Bubb said. “I think that was the best we’ve looked at the plate against a pretty good pitcher. I think we can build on that offensively, but we can’t give up as many runs. We gotta fix it defensively before we can do anything.”