PLANT CITY, Fla. – The Illinois College softball team waited a long time to get its game in on Tuesday, but once the Lady Blues finally got their contest with Penn State University-Behrend underway after a delay of more than five hours, they were able to claim their first win of the season with a 7-6 walk-off victory over the Lions.
Maddie Nichols was sharp to start the contest, sitting Penn State-Behrend down in order in both the first and second innings. Illinois College took the lead quickly with three runs in the bottom of the first.
Savanna Brady drove in
Jackie Reilly with a RBI double. With two down in the inning,
Grace Frost doubled to right-center to drive in a run, followed by a
Madisyn Webster RBI triple.
Playing small-ball, Penn State-Behrend got back in it on a RBI bunt single in the top of the third to make it 3-1. That was followed by a four-run fourth inning in which two runs scored on a soft pop-up between the pitcher and first base. Later on, the Lions took the lead on a wild pitch and then extended it to 5-3 on another bunt single to drive in a run.
Sydney Hood was the pitcher by the time the fourth inning ended and though Penn State-Behrend tacked on another run in the fifth on a RBI groundout back to Hood, that was all the Lions would get from there on out.
In the bottom of the fifth, Reilly and
Megan Spain led off the inning with back-to-back singles to put runners on the corners with no outs. With one away, a wild pitch scored Reilly and made it 6-4, followed by a Frost RBI single to close the Lady Blues to within a single run before PSU-Behrend escaped with a double play to stay on top.
The comeback started in the bottom of the seventh inning with a Spain single, followed by a single from Brady. Brady's hit was a difficult one to read however, and PSU-Behrend was able to throw down to second to get Spain for the force-out for the first out of the inning.
Frankie Sikora got things rolling again with a walk and there would eventually be runners on the corners with two outs. That set the stage for
Katie Poe, who came off the bench and delivered a game-tying RBI single to center field, knotting it at 6-6 and leaving Frost at third base. The next hitter,
Christin Mathias, grounded a single back up the middle to bring Frost home and seal the victory.
Nichols went 3.1 innings but ended with a no-decision on the evening. Hood got the win by going 3.2 innings and scattering six hits along with an unearned run. The freshman struck out five hitters in the game. The Lady Blues pounded out 15 hits in the game, with Brady supplying three of them. Reilly, Spain, Frost, Mathias and
Sam Seggerman all ended with two hits apiece.
Illinois College was scheduled to play two games on Tuesday, but the long delay nixed the matchup between the Lady Blues and Ohio Northern University. There is no make-up date for that game, so IC will leave Florida with eight games – weather permitting – under its belt rather than the scheduled ten.
Action continues tomorrow for Illinois College with an 11 a.m. (EST) first pitch against Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
