By: Mariah Hedges threw her third complete game of the Spring Break trip to down Wheaton (MA), 4-2. Transylvania defeated IC later in the morning.
Box Score 1 |
Box Score 2
KISSIMMEE, Fla. – The Illinois College softball team took one out of two games on Thursday as the Lady Blues ended their trip to Florida with an overall record of 6-4. IC won its first game of the day over Wheaton College (MA), 4-2. Transylvania University put a damper on the end of the trip with a 7-2 victory over the Lady Blues to end the day.
Illinois College returns to the Midwest and will be back in action on March 25 with a road doubleheader at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind. Games are set for 12 and 2 p.m. (CST) that afternoon.
Game One: Illinois College 4, Wheaton (MA) 2
Another strong outing from
Mariah Hedges lifted Illinois College to the win in the first game of the day. Hedges scattered eight hits and survived a pair of errors to stay undefeated at 3-0 for the season with her third complete game of the Spring Break trip.
Wheaton loaded the bases in the top of the second inning, but solid defense by
Natalie Halpin got the Lady Blues out of the inning without giving up a run. Illinois College then took the lead in the bottom of the third inning with a one-out double by
Savanna Brady bringing
Mickalah York home.
The game took a turn in the top of the fifth when the Lyons had three straight hitters reach base with one away. A soft tapper to the middle of the infield scored a run to tie the game at 1-1 and a RBI groundout gave Wheaton a brief 2-1 advantage.
Illinois College responded quickly.
Mikayla Greenwood beat out a bang-bang play at first base and moved up from first to third on a sacrifice bunt by
Lea Hall. After that, a wild pitch scored the junior to knot the game up at 2-2.
Hedges kept the Lyons off the board in the top of the sixth inning and
Frankie Sikora led off the bottom half with a single.
Elyce Trout moved her to second with a sac bunt and
Katie Prizer singled up the middle to put runners on the corners. Up in a big spot, Greenwood hit a grounder to second and the Lyons tried to turn two, but Greenwood hustled out of the box and beat the throw. That allowed Sikora to score for a 3-2 lead. Hall then came up and doubled to right-center to increase it to a 4-2 advantage heading to the seventh inning.
Though Hedges issued a two-out walk that allowed the tying run to come to the plate, a grounder to Greenwood at third base ended it.
The trio of Sikora, Greenwood and Brady all had a pair of hits each for IC in the game.
Game Two: Transylvania 7, Illinois College 2
Defensive lapses contributed heavily to Illinois College's 7-2 loss to the Pioneers.
Maddie Nichols was tagged for six runs, but only three were earned as the freshman fell to 1-3 on the season.
Other than Sikora being hit by a pitch, the Lady Blues failed to put a runner on base in the first two innings of the game. A walk and a hit batter put two aboard with two outs in the bottom of the second, but that's when things went wrong for the IC defense. A second hit batter in the inning loaded the bases and a single into shallow left ended up scoring all three runners after the throw from
Jackie Reilly to
Marissa Knowles got away from the catcher. The next hitter up also reached on an error to increase the Transylvania lead to 4-0.
Illinois College cut into the Pioneer lead in the top of the fourth.
Shelby Koehler singled to lead off the inning and Sikora was hit by a pitch yet again to put two on. With both runners in scoring position, Prizer hit a two-out single and drove in both to make it 4-2.
Transylvania extended back out to a four-run lead in the fifth inning with another IC error contributing to the Pioneer runs. Two hits to start the inning scored a run and ended Nichols' day in the circle. Later in the inning, a sacrifice bunt brought another runner in.
In the top of the sixth, an IC rally was thwarted when Hall was thrown out at home following a Prizer single. The Pioneers tacked on one more run with a RBI double in the bottom of the inning. In the top of the seventh, the Lady Blues loaded the bases with two outs but Renae Morton got
Ryleigh Keith out on strikes to end the game and put the finishing touches on her complete game.
Koehler and Prizer each ended with two hits apiece.
