LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Fast starts in both games Sunday propelled the Lady Miner softball team to a doubleheader sweep over Bellarmine and into third place in the Great Lakes Valley Conference standings.
The Lady Miners put three runs on the board in the opening inning of game one and came away with a 7-4 win, then scored four times in the first in the second contest and took a 9-2 decision to complete the sweep.
The wins, the seventh and eighth in succession for the Lady Miners, moved UMR to 23-10 overall and 11-5 in GLVC play, just one game behind SIU Edwardsville for second place in the conference. The Lady Miners will host SIUE next Sunday after playing Southern Indiana Saturday afternoon at noon at the UMR Softball Field.
Emily Tucker's three-run homer in the first inning gave UMR the 3-0 advantage in game one, then pitcher Jen O'Hara essentially kept the Knights at bay for the rest of the afternoon.
Bellarmine scored a run in the bottom of the first, but UMR got that run back in the third when Ashley Winter opened the inning with a triple and scored on Kelsey Musselman's hit. The Lady Miners put two more runs on the scoreboard in the fourth when Kandi Wieberg doubled home Krista Porterfield and scored herself on a double by Winter.
The Knights trimmed the lead to 6-3 with runs in the fourth and fifth, but Tucker drove in her fourth run of the contest in the sixth with a run-scoring double, the Lady Miners' fifth extra base hit of the game. Bellarmine did get the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the seventh, but O'Hara got Courtney Roller to pop out to close the game and improve her record to 14-7.
Each of the top five hitters in the Lady Miner order -- Wieberg, Winter, Musselman, Rachel Wilkinson and Tucker -- all had two hits apiece.
UMR followed that victory by jumping on Knight starter Sharon Brill for four runs in the first inning of the nightcap. Three straight singles, the last by Musselman, brought in the first run, then an RBI single by Tucker made it 2-0. Following a walk to Lauren Feltmann to load the bases, Coley Naughton delivered a two-run single to the opposite field to double the UMR advantage.
The Lady Miners tacked on a run in the second on an RBI double by Wilkinson and another in the fourth when Tucker drove her in with a two-out hit.
After Bellarmine got on the board in the fourth, UMR pushed the lead to 8-1 in the fifth on sacrifice flies by Wieberg and Winter. UMR also scored in the seventh when Winter reached on an infield single -- her third hit of the game -- to score Porterfield.
Tucker also had three hits in game two for the Lady Miners, who had 16 hits in the contest.
Ashley Wallingford picked up the win in the nightcap as she scattered nine hits and struck out six to improve to 9-3.
Leave a comment