The Illinois softball team didn’t open its conference schedule the way it wanted to.

The Illini (10-15, 0-3 Big Ten) weren’t able to carry momentum from winning the first ever Fighting Illini Invitational and were swept by Wisconsin (25-3, 3-0) in a three-game set.

“We wanted to start out the Big Ten regular conference season strong, and we weren’t able to do that, but first I have to give credit to our opponent Wisconsin for coming in here and fighting pretty hard,” head coach Terri Sullivan said. “They came up big in the right times, especially (Saturday). We offensively never really exploded like I’ve seen our team do. There were steps in the right direction in these games, but we’re not exactly where we want to be.”

Illinois wasn’t able to click on all cylinders in any of the games. The Illini gave up seven unearned runs on five errors in the opener Friday, which resulted in an 8-1 win for the Badgers.

“We didn’t deserve that one, and we didn’t play good enough softball at this level and in this conference to win that one defensively with the five errors,” Sullivan said. “You’re going to pay for that at this part in the season.”

Illinois also turned three double plays in the first game, which is its most on the season, but a feat Sullivan feels is misleading.

“It’s a funny game, right?” Sullivan said. “If you’re not sitting in the stands, and you just see something on paper, you don’t really get it. Those double plays were a couple lineouts to the right people with strong throwing arms.”

After the loss Friday, Illinois came back and played a doubleheader against the Badgers on Saturday, losing both games due to a lack of clutch hits.

In the first game of the day, the Illini scored in the bottom of the first on a timely hit from sophomore Jess Perkins, who drove in junior Alex Booker to give them a 1-0 lead. From there, Wisconsin took control, scoring five unanswered runs to win the game 5-1.

“I know we need the clutch hits, and that our defense is a lot better than we showed this weekend, so we just have to show it,” Perkins said. “We need to be more mentally and physically tough and resilient as well.”

The second game was more of the same. Illinois struck first in the second inning on a sacrifice fly by senior Linnea Detrick. Wisconsin scored five runs over the next four innings and led 5-1 in the middle of the sixth.

The Illini scored another run in the bottom of the sixth and looked poised for a comeback before being shut down in order to end the game 5-2.

“We have to make routine plays defensively and come up with clutch hits offensively,” Sullivan said. “Each game was different because we cleaned some things up, but we just have to go out and play really solid throughout the whole game.”

In order to respond from this weekend, senior pitcher Pepper Gay said the team will have to transfer how it practices into its games.

“We’ve got to be at our best to win in the Big Ten, so we just need to trust ourselves and our preparation,” Gay said.

Nicholas can be reached at [email protected] and @IlliniSportsGuy.