EDMOND, Okla. – Three unearned runs on two Pittsburg State errors were enough to give the Missouri Western softball team a 4-2 win in the opening round of the MIAA Softball Championships.
Missouri Western got off to a hot start, scoring two runs in the first. Brea Blanton led off the first with a double to center and scored one batter later on Morgan Frost’s 22nd double of the season. Two batters after Gabi Carter walked, a Sydni Hawkins fly ball to the warning track in right was dropped by the right fielder, allowing Carter to score. The top of the order produced again in the fifth. A fielding error by the Pitt State second baseman on a ground ball hit by Hawkins scored Blanton and Emma Hoffart to give MWSU a 4-0 lead.
The Softball Gods tried to get even with Hawkins in the sixth. A Hawkins error to lead off the top of the sixth put a runner on for Kala Holder who rocked a 1-1 Kaili Hinds pitch over the wall in left center to pull the Gorillas within two.
Hinds started the seventh by forcing a ground out, but walked the next two batters to put the go-ahead run at the plate. Jen Bagley Trotter brought Olivia Goodale in for Hinds to stop the Pitt State rally. Making her first appearance since April 12, Goodale picked up her MWSU single season record-tying fifth save of the year by getting a pop up and securing MWSU’s 17th consecutive win with a strikeout.
The Griffons advanced to face No. 3 seed Washburn for the second time in six days. The Ichabods defeated No. 6-seeded Emporia State 2-1 on Wednesday. Missouri Western took both games of a doubleheader from Washburn last week, 7-2 and 3-2.
NOTABLES
- The win streak reached 17 games, the longest since Missouri Western’s MIAA-record 32-game win streak in 2009
- Goodale tied Cheri Kempf and Angela Pettitt for the most saves in a season by a Griffon with five
- Hinds won her 12th consecutive decision, scattering four hits and one earned run over 6 1/3 with six strikeouts and four walks
- Frost needs just three more doubles to break Amy Beverly’s MWSU single-season record of 24
- MWSU scored four runs on just four hits, with two from Blanton, one from Frost and one from Hoffart
— MWSU Athletics —