By: An eight-game winning streak came to an end on Tuesday afternoon as Millikin prevailed over Illinois College by scores of 4-3 and 10-2.
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JACKSONVILLE, Ill. – The Illinois College softball team had its eight-game winning streak ended on Tuesday as Millikin University fought back for a 4-3 victory in the opener, then hit IC pitching hard early on in a 10-2 win. The Lady Blues fall to 23-11 on the season.
Illinois College opens the Midwest Conference Tournament on Friday, facing Grinnell College at 10 a.m. in Lake Forest, Ill. Depending on the outcome of that game, the Lady Blues would play at either 2 or 4 p.m. later that afternoon.
Game One: Millikin 4, Illinois College 3
A three-run double by
Shelby Koehler in the bottom of the fourth inning put Illinois College ahead, but Millikin battled back to score three times in the top of the fifth and held on from there to get the win.
Mariah Hedges took her first loss since the team's Spring Break trip to Florida, falling to 13-4 on the season.
Both teams were sharp defensively early on and runs seemed like they would be at a premium. Millikin started the scoring with a two-out home run off the bat of Skielyr Trenkle to make it 1-0.
In the bottom of the fourth,
Hailey Lesser led off with a single and
Frankie Sikora drew a one-out walk.
Elyce Trout then singled to load the bases for Koehler, who delivered a shot to left-center, bringing all three runs in for a 3-1 advantage.
Millikin had runners on second and third with two outs in the top of the fifth when the Big Blue used a suicide squeeze play to score a run and make it 3-2. With no fielder covering second base, Kailey Lyons alertly took second base on the play to keep two runners in scoring position. That proved to be the difference when Millikin scored two runs on an infield single and an error to take a 4-3 lead.
Illinois College had the tying run in scoring position in both the fifth and sixth innings, but couldn't come up with a timely hit to level the score.
Jackie Reilly, Trout and Koehler all had two hits in the contest for IC. Hedges allowed four runs (three earned) and scattered nine hits across her seven innings of work.
Game Two: Millikin 10, Illinois College 2
Millikin hit
Katie Poe hard in the sophomore's first career start. A generally-solid defense from Illinois College also let Poe down as two errors helped the Big Blue cause in the first inning. When all was said and done, the Big Blue had a 7-0 lead before Illinois College had a chance to bat.
By tacking on single runs in the second and fourth innings, Millikin increased its lead to 9-0 and were on the doorstep of ending the game early heading to the bottom of the fifth inning. With two down and
Marissa Knowles on first base, Reilly tagged her second home run of the season to make it 9-2 and keep the game alive. The final seven IC hitters were retired in order however, and the Big Blue added a final run in the seventh inning for the 10-2 win.
Reilly, Sikora,
Ryleigh Keith and
Christin Mathias had the four Illinois College hits in the game. The Lady Blues committed four errors which led to five unearned runs by Millikin.
