JACKSONVILLE, Ill. – For the second year in a row, the Illinois College softball team ran into a buzzsaw in the form of Cornell College pitcher Haley Harmon. Harmon defeated the Lady Blues twice in a row last season to deny IC the Midwest Conference Championship. On Saturday, she again pitched all 14 innings of a doubleheader and was the winner in each game, taking the Lady Blues down by scores of 2-0 and 5-1 on Senior Day. IC is now 14-12 (9-5 MWC) on the season.
Illinois College still holds onto fourth place in the MWC, but before the deciding weekend of play on April 27 and 28 in Janesville, Wis., the Lady Blues will first step away for a non-conference doubleheader at Millikin University on April 24 starting at 5 p.m.
Game One: Cornell 2, Illinois College 0
Illinois College managed only four total hits in game one against Cornell. Things were scoreless until the top of the sixth inning when the Rams put both runs on the board against
Sydney Hood (7-5). Kat Edmond and Kim Rose had the two RBIs in the inning for the visitors.
The Lady Blues left runners in scoring position in both the first and second innings and that turned out to be the best scoring opportunities of the game. Harmon got stronger as the game went along and put IC down in order in both the third and fifth innings. In the seventh, a lead-off single from
Frankie Sikora brought the tying run to the plate, but Harmon finished off the job with a groundout, strikeout and flyout.
Though she took the loss, Hood was impressive with only seven hits allowed and four strikeouts in another complete game.
Game Two: Cornell 5, Illinois College 1
The Lady Blues had a better time against Harmon in game two but could scratch out only one run despite a total of eight hits. The contest was again scoreless for a long stretch, but Cornell struck for three unearned runs against
Jess Feig (6-7) with two outs in the top of the fifth.
Hailey Lesser pulled one back for IC with an RBI single in the bottom of the fifth that scored
Sam Seggerman, but Cornell tacked on a couple of insurance runs in the top of the seventh to put the game away.
In the bottom of the second inning,
Madisyn Webster became Illinois College's first player to reach third base on Harmon as she hit a one-out single and then proceeded to steal second and third. An early run might have made a huge difference for IC, but Harmon was able to escape without damage. Base-running errors came into play for the Lady Blues in the third and fourth innings, setting the stage for Cornell's three-run outburst in the fifth. Seggerman,
Jackie Reilly and Lesser were finally able to string something together in the bottom of the fifth, but only one run scored, making it 3-1. With Reilly's hit, she became the all-time leader in hits for the Lady Blues with 173 in her career.
The game stayed at 3-1 until the top of the seventh when Cornell scored two runs on consecutive doubles to increase its lead to 5-1.
Jenna Wright tried to ignite a late rally with a lead-off walk in the bottom of the seventh, but the Lady Blues went down in order from there to close it out.
