The season slipped away for the Ohio softball team over the weekend.

The Bobcats dropped three of four games and failed to make the Mid-American Conference Tournament by a half-game. The Bobcats finished the season 27-34 overall and 13-14 in the MAC. They lost eight of their final 10 conference games.

"I think we're very depressed," pitcher Kasey Dowd said. "It's hard to accept. We were in first place just a couple of weeks ago."

The team lost Friday 6-2 in the first game and 7-2 in the second game to MAC regular season champion Northern Illinois. Saturday, Western Michigan blanked Ohio 5-0 and the Bobcats shut out the Chippewas 3-0 in 11 innings in the second game. Centerfielder Missy Samus said the team just pressed too hard.

"We wanted to win so badly and things just didn't work out," she said.

Northern Illinois used a five-run fourth inning in game one on Friday to catapult it to victory. Huskie outfielder Sara Youstra had two hits and two RBIs. Dowd took the loss for Ohio.

The second game of the doubleheader was more of the same for Ohio. The Huskies banged out 10 hits and scored in four of the six innings. Huskie first basemen Julie Stroph had three RBIs. Third basemen Becky Egelhoff had a solo home run for Ohio in the loss.

"Northern Illinois is a good team," Ohio shortstop Jackie Rensel said. "We played well. We made a couple of errors that helped them score. Their pitching was the best in the MAC."

On Saturday, Ohio was handcuffed by Chippewa pitcher Jennifer Vanover. She came within one out of a no-hitter before Bobcat catcher Jen Sewell singled in the seventh inning. Dowd dropped to 15-15 despite giving up only two earned runs. Two errors contributed to the other three runs.

Vanover also started the second game for Western Michigan and shut out Ohio for the first 10 innings of the game before the team figured her out in the eleventh inning. Catcher Tiffany Bolton had two RBIs and Sewell also had an RBI in the eleventh inning. Pitcher Heather Hagen threw 11 shutout innings to get the win.

"We were just fighting ourselves the whole season," Rensel said. "We kind of put ourselves into a rut. We had a talented team. We just beat ourselves."