The Lady Miners' eight-game winning streak came to a halt Saturday afternoon as Southern Indiana took both games of the doubleheader at the UMR Softball Field.
USI broke a 3-3 tie with a run in the fourth inning, which held up for a 4-3 win in the first game, then throttled a sloppy Lady Miner team 11-2 to complete the sweep.
The Eagles got out of the gate quickly in game one, touching Jen O'Hara for three runs in the first inning. The first four USI batters reached base, with Kristin Eickholt and Audra Lindenschmidt delivering run scoring singles to give it a 2-0 lead. An infield hit later in the inning extended the advantage to 3-0.
UMR came back and tied the game with a three-run third inning, which started with a walk to O'Hara with one out. Allison Plummer then reached on an error and a hit by Kandi Wieberg loaded the bases. Rachel Wilkinson singled home the first run for UMR, then another hit by Kelsey Musselman made it 3-2. UMR tied the game moments later when Emily Tucker slapped a single up the middle.
Southern Indiana regained the lead when it came back to the plate when Kathy Wood drove in Kirsten Morgan who had singled with one out..
The Lady Miners got a leadoff double from Wieberg in the fifth and a one-out single from Plummer in the seventh, but those were the only baserunners UMR had in the final four innings.
Wieberg had two of UMR's five hits in game one.
The second game turned into a nightmare for the Lady Miners, as four errors led to five unearned runs in the 11-2 loss.
USI scored four times in the top of the second to take the lead, with two of the runs scoring on a throwing error. The Lady Miners cut that lead in half in the bottom of the inning, getting four doubles in the inning but scoring only twice.
Three straight two-base hits off the bats of Tucker, Coley Naughton and Ashley Wallingford led to the two runs; however, Wallingford had to stop at third on Krista Porterfield's one-out double and both runners ended up being stranded.
The Eagles proceeded to bust the game open in the third with a five-run outburst, aided by UMR errors in the inning that led to three unearned runs. A dropped throw at first base that would have ended the inning allowed the second run to score, then another miscue brought home the third run. Ally McKinley's two-run double followed that to close the scoring in that inning.
USI scored two more runs in the fourth and held UMR to two hits over the final two innings to end the game on the eight-run rule after five innings.
Porterfield had two hits for the Lady Miners, who had six in the second game. None of the six came off the bat of Kandi Wieberg as her school record-tying 18-game hitting streak came to an end.
UMR (23-12, 11-7 GLVC) will host No. 10-ranked SIU Edwardsville Sunday at noon at the UMR Softball Field.
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