By: Though Illinois College trailed early in each game, the Lady Blues racked up hit after hit and defeated Knox by scores of 12-3 and 24-1.
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Box Score 2
JACKSONVILLE, Ill. – The Illinois College softball team got back on the right track on Wednesday afternoon with a dominating sweep of Knox College in a Midwest Conference doubleheader. Prairie Fire pitching was completely outclassed all afternoon and the Lady Blues ended each game early, winning 12-3 in six innings in the opener and by a whopping margin of 24-1 in five innings to close it out. IC is now 14-8 (6-4 MWC) for the season.
The Lady Blues will go on the road for two doubleheaders this weekend, starting with two games at Ripon College on April 16 starting at 1 p.m.
Game One: Illinois College 12, Knox 3 (6 innings)
In a surprising twist to each game, Illinois College actually trailed Knox in the first inning before lighting up the scoreboard the rest of the way. The Prairie Fire were the team on the offensive in the top of the first inning, not hitting the ball hard, but certainly following the old adage of "hit'em where they ain't."
Three straight singles by Knox saw the ball barely leave the infield, but the bases were loaded all the same for clean-up hitter Chelsey Howard. Her hard-hit ground ball to third resulted in an error and a 1-0 lead. Another single by Alannah Sanchez followed and the Prairie Fire went up 2-0 before
Amanda Price settled in and struck out two batters and ended the inning with a groundout to
Shelby Koehler at first.
The Lady Blues didn't struggle much after that. Koehler led off the first with a line drive that Sanchez snared out of sheer self-preservation for the first out, but
Jackie Reilly was next up and her solo home run set the tone for what was to come.
Katie Prizer doubled with one down and
Lea Hall tripled to right field, then scored on a throwing error by the rightfielder to give Illinois College a 3-2 lead after one.
Abby Campbell led off the second inning with a double and Reilly scored the senior on a ripped double into center field to up the lead to 4-2. Hall later brought Reilly in with a single back up the middle on the first pitch of her at-bat to increase it to a 5-2 game at the end of the second inning.
Price again had some struggles in the third inning, allowing three hits and a Knox run to cut it to 5-3. After throwing a complete game yesterday, Head Coach
Meghan Roman opted to let her ace rest, giving the ball to
Lanie Thompson with one out and the tying run in scoring position. The move couldn't have played out any better for Illinois College as Thompson threw 3.2 innings of perfect softball the rest of the way, not allowing a runner of any kind and striking out six.
Three runs in the bottom of the third essentially put the game away for Illinois College.
Marissa Knowles singled on the first pitch of the inning and Campbell doubled with one down to get her home for a 6-3 edge. With two outs, a three-base error by the Knox left fielder pushed Campbell across and put Reilly on third and an error by the shortstop followed to plate her to make it 8-3.
After a scoreless fourth inning for each team,
Mickalah York drove in pinch-runner
Brenna Garland for a 9-3 lead entering the sixth innings. Thompson kept her perfect game in relief going with a 1-2-3 inning and the Lady Blues scored three times in the bottom half to end it.
Mikayla Greenwood walked on four pitches to start the inning and
Emily Kay doubled her home for the first run. From there, the bases were loaded and Hall doubled to the gap in left-center to reach the lead that IC needed to end the game early.
Thompson improved to 3-2 with the victory after recording the final 11 outs of the game. Prizer was 4-for-4 at the plate and both Hall and Campbell ended with three hits apiece as well as the Lady Blues hammered out 16 hits in the game.
Game Two: Illinois College 24, Knox 1 (5 innings)
Nearly every hitter who came to the plate for Illinois College contributed to the cause as the Lady Blues won in a landslide in the second game.
Leah Shumaker pitched the first three innings to pick up the win and go to 2-2 while
DJ Troli ended the game by allowing only one hit over the last two innings.
Knox was actually able to go ahead in the top of the first, loading the bases and scoring on a RBI groundout. That lead lasted until IC's third batter. Koehler and Reilly led off the first with singles and an error from the rightfielder on a fly ball hit by Prizer scored Koehler to tie the game. After Hall was hit by a pitch, the bases were loaded for
Elyce Trout and she cleared them with a three-run triple. RBIs from Knowles and
Hannah Knapper followed for a 6-1 lead, and as the batting order came back around, Koehler drove in two runs and Prizer added one for a 9-1 advantage after the first.
Only
Kinzie Verhines was aboard with two down in the second inning when things again went downhill for the Prairie Fire. Verhines stole second and went to third on a wild pitch before being driven in by a Campbell double that also brought Knapper around to make it 11-1. Koehler was next up and her two-run blast to left upped it to a 13-1 game. That was the end of the day for Knox pitcher Kristen Koviekis, but Illinois College scored once more in the second on a walk by York and an error in left that brought the lightning-quick junior outfielder in for a 14-1 cushion.
Though the outcome was no longer in doubt, the IC bats continued to have their way in the third inning, scoring eight more runs.
Natalie Halpin, Garland and Knapper were all on base when
Ryleigh Keith tripled to make it 17-1. Koehler drove in Keith with a single and Greenwood added two more RBIs on a single to left. Kay plated the final two runs of the inning on a double to left-center.
The Lady Blues tacked on two more runs thanks in part to two Knox errors in the fourth inning before Knapper ended the game in the fifth inning on a double play, snagging a line drive to third and throwing across the diamond to get a Knox runner who had left first base on contact.
Illinois College ended with 18 hits in the game to only three for the Prairie Fire. Koehler led the way by going 5-for-5 with five RBIs and four runs scored. York and Halpin added two hits apiece and nine other players had one hit.
