LAKE FOREST, Ill. – The Illinois College softball team got off to a bright start on Saturday with a 4-2 win over Lake Forest College, but the Foresters recovered and came away with a 3-1 win in game two as the two Midwest Conference powers split their regular-season matchup for the second year in a row. IC is now 10-10 (5-3 MWC), while the Foresters are 11-11 (4-2 MWC).
Tomorrow's scheduled doubleheader at Beloit College has already been postponed and will be made up at the end of the month. The Lady Blues will wrap up a long stretch of road games on Tuesday afternoon with a doubleheader at Knox College starting at 3 p.m.
Game One: Illinois College 4, Lake Forest 2
A pitcher's duel got the day started as
Sydney Hood matched up with Missy Dieckman-Meyer in the opener. The Illinois College freshman, Hood, got the better of the returning First Team All-MWC pitcher despite Dieckman-Meyer throwing a four-hitter. Hood scatted six hits across her 7.0 innings to improve to 5-4 on the season.
Knotted in a scoreless game until the bottom of the fourth, Lake Forest took a 1-0 lead on a two-out double from Maddie Trost. Hood fielder her position with a groundout to avoid any further damage and the Illinois College offense picked her up from there, scoring two runs in both the fifth and sixth innings.
A
Christin Mathias walk to open the fifth inning provided an opening for the Lady Blues and
Hailey Lesser took advantage with a two-out single to bring pinch-runner
Skylar Dees and
Madisyn Webster home for a 2-1 lead. The Foresters came back to tie the score at 2-2 with no outs in the bottom half of the inning, but Hood struck out two batters before getting Nicole Schussler to ground out to second base to close out the frame.
In the sixth, the Lady Blues turned to small ball to take the lead.
Savanna Brady led off with a single and was lifted for pinch-runner
Mariana Babic. Illinois College then bunted three straight times to bring Babic home, with
Megan Spain providing the RBI. A
Sam Seggerman single later brought
Ryleigh Keith home for a 4-2 lead.
Hood made the lead stand up, striking out the side in the sixth inning and getting the first two outs of the seventh on strikeouts before a grounder back to her ended the game and left two Lake Forest runners stranded.
Game Two: Lake Forest 3, Illinois College 1
Lake Forest didn't do much against
Jess Feig in the second game, but it turned out to be enough. Despite being outhit in the game, 9-5, the Foresters scored one run in the first, third and fifth innings to give the IC senior the loss. The runs in the first and fifth inning came on sacrifice flies and the run in the third was scored on a sacrifice bunt that turned into an IC error.
Alyssa Grimm drove in all three runs in the game for Lake Forest. In the bottom of the first, Maria Zepeda worked a lead-off walk and would come home on a sac fly from Grimm for a 1-0 lead. That same combination of Grimm and Zepeda struck again in the third. Zepeda was hit by a pitch to start the inning and Grimm tried to bunt her home. An error by Feig allowed Grimm to reach and the run to score, making it 2-0.
The Foresters extended out to a 3-0 lead in the fifth when Riley Frisbee reached on a one-out walk. After being doubled over to third, Grimm once again lifted a sac fly deep enough into the outfield to drive in a run.
Down 3-0, the Lady Blues put one on the board in the sixth with a Mathias single that scored Dees from third. With the tying run at the plate, Illinois College lined into an inning-ending double play. In the seventh inning the Lady Blues had runners at second and third, but the Foresters were able to get two straight outs to end the threat with neither run coming in.
Lesser ended the game with a 3-for-4 day at the plate. Feig fell to 4-6 despite her five-hitter, striking out seven Lake Forest batters in the game.
