By: Both Defiance and Hiram challenged the Lady Blues late, but IC had built enough of a lead in each contest to hold on for the wins.
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Box Score 2 KISSIMMEE, Fla. – The Illinois College softball team began their 2016 season exactly how they would have hoped with a pair of victories on Sunday against Defiance College and Hiram College. How they got there – well that was a different story. The Lady Blues led Defiance 7-1 entering the bottom of the sixth and were up on Hiram 6-1 going to the top of the seventh but got more of a challenge than they might have expected before hanging on for 7-4 and 6-5 victories.
Now 2-0 on the year, Illinois College is back in action for two more games tomorrow at the Osceola County Softball Complex, playing Marietta College at 9 a.m. (EST) and Mount St. Joseph University at 1:30 p.m. (EST).
Game One: Illinois College 7, Defiance 4Illinois College scored in each of the first four innings to consistently build a lead over Defiance before the Yellow Jackets tried to rally late in the game.
Amanda Price threw a complete game to move to 1-0 on the season, receiving some fantastic defensive help along the way while striking out four.
The 2016 version of the Lady Blues has a lot of new faces in the mix and five of them received the first starts of their IC careers in the opener. They immediately paid dividends, especially at the top of the batting order. Lead-off hitter
Shelby Koehler scored two runs, as did freshman
Jackie Reilly.
Katie Prizer and
Lea Hall supplied the power from the three and four holes in the line-up.
Koehler began the game with a walk and Reilly moved her into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt. After Prizer flew out deep to right field, allowing Koehler to move up to third base, Hall drove her in with a double to stake Illinois College to a 1-0 lead.
Price worked out of a first inning jam, stranding runners on second and third and bringing the hitters back to the plate. A pair of errors from the Defiance defense in the second put runners on the corners and
Hannah Knapper brought
Elyce Trout into score on a RBI groundout, making it 2-0.
Reilly made a pair of nice defensive plays in left field to limit the Yellow Jackets in the bottom of the second and then got on base in the third as she sprinted down the line to beat out a grounder to third. With two on and one out, Hall doubled over the head of the center fielder to bring Reilly in for a 3-0 edge and
Kinzie Verhines later singled in Prizer for a 4-0 lead.
Defiance pulled one run back in the bottom half, but the Yellow Jackets again stranded two runners. Reilly got the run back for Illinois College in the top of the fourth on a bad throw by a Defiance infielder, bringing
Abby Campbell around. Prizer followed with a single right back up the middle to score Reilly, giving the Lady Blues a 6-1 advantage.
The game stayed there until the top of the sixth when Koehler led off the inning with a single. Prizer doubled to center field to put two runners in scoring position and Defiance, clearly done with pitching to Hall, intentionally walked the sophomore to load the bases. Trout followed with a sacrifice fly to score Koehler, increasing the cushion to 7-1.
The Yellow Jackets put together a rally in the bottom of the sixth, scoring once but leaving the bases loaded to pull within five runs going into the final inning. Down to its final two outs in the seventh, Defiance had runners on second and third and each would score on a wild pitch, but Price induced a pair of ground balls to end it.
Prizer ended 3-of-4 at the dish with a RBI and a run scored. Hall was 2-for-2 while being intentionally walked twice as well. Verhines added two more hits from the sixth spot in the line-up.
Game Two: Illinois College 6, Hiram 5The second game of the day for the Lady Blues followed a similar script as IC took a 4-0 lead after two innings of play and increased it to 6-1 through five.
Mariah Hedges cruised most of the way before running into trouble in the seventh, however Koehler made a nice grab on a line drive to end the game with the go-ahead run on second.
After Hiram left the bases loaded in the top of the first, Koehler got the offense going with a lead-off double. A throwing error by the shortstop with Reilly at the plate put runners on the corners, and the two then worked a delayed double steal to plate Koehler for a 1-0 lead. With Reilly on second, Hall ripped a double down the left field line for a 2-0 edge after one.
A second Hiram error opened the door to another two-run inning for the Lady Blues in the second.
Marissa Knowles reached after the Terriers' second baseman misplayed a ground ball and she advanced to third after a Knapper sac bunt and a single from Koehler. With runners on the corners and one down, Reilly singled through the hole on the left side for one run and Prizer brought Koehler home one batter later.
Though Hiram got one run back in the top of the fifth, Hall quickly extended the IC advantage in the bottom of the inning by launching a two-run shot over the wall in left-center to make it 6-1. The Lady Blues maintained a five-run lead until the seventh, when Hiram and the umpires combined for an ending that was a little too close for comfort.
The first two batters for the Terriers reached, the second of which was a double to make it 6-2. After recording the first out on a grounder to Koehler, Prizer then fielded what appeared to be the second out on a soft roller down the first base line. The Hiram batter stopped and stepped out of the way of Prizer to avoid a tag, but then ran to first after Prizer threw the ball back to Hedges in the circle. Though the rule says that avoiding a tag by delay results in an out, the batter was ruled safe and the Terriers suddenly had two on with one out, rather than one on with two out.
A walk by Hedges followed to load the bases, before a sacrifice fly made it 6-3. Needing just one more out, the Lady Blues saw Hiram connect on back-to-back base hits and a wild pitch by Hedges scored another run to make it 6-5 and leave the go-ahead run on second base. The drama concluded with Koehler making the snag on a hot line drive however, finally securing the 6-5 victory.
Four players ended with two hits in the game for Illinois College. Koehler, Prizer, Hall and Knapper all had a pair of hits and Hall led all players in the game with three runs driven in.
