JANESVILLE, Wis. – The Illinois College softball team opened up its regular season-ending trip to Wisconsin on Friday with a doubleheader sweep of Beloit College. The Lady Blues received complete game victories from
Sydney Hood (9-5) and
Jess Feig (7-8) on the night. While the offense sputtered at times, IC was able to add onto its leads late in each contest to finish each game comfortably ahead.
The two wins improve the Lady Blues to 17-13 (11-5 Midwest Conference), pushing them into a tie for fourth place with St. Norbert College, just one game behind Lake Forest College for first place in the tightly-bunched MWC standings.
Illinois College heads north to Appleton, Wis. tomorrow in an effort to get a doubleheader in against Lawrence University. First pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m.
Game One: Illinois College 6, Beloit 1
Illinois College took the lead in the top of the first inning in the opener and never looked back even though Alyssa Boltik was able to keep the Lady Blues in check for a time.
Hailey Lesser hit a one-out double in the first inning and then stole third base before being driven in on a
Savanna Brady sacrifice fly. In the second inning,
Megan Spain kept the inning alive with a two-out single and
Sam Seggerman drove her in with a double to the gap in left-center to make it 2-0.
Beloit got one run back in the bottom of the second inning against Hood, but the Buccaneers would manage one base-runner per inning at most against the freshman the rest of the way. While Beloit was unable to tie the game up against Hood, the Lady Blues set out to put the game away. Brady drove in her second run of the game in the top of the fifth to score
Jenna Wright for a 3-1 lead. Lesser then drove in two runs with a RBI single in the seventh and later scored on a Beloit error to increase the lead to 6-1.
Lesser, Seggerman and
Frankie Sikora all had two hits in the game for Illinois College. Hood went 7.0 innings and struck out eight while allowing just four hits.
Game Two: Illinois College 6, Beloit 3
Jackie Reilly and Sikora each had three hits to lead the Illinois College offense in game two. Feig threw a complete game and struck out seven Beloit batters.
The Lady Blues took the lead in the second inning in an unorthodox way. With runners on the corners and no outs,
Christin Mathias popped the ball towards the middle of the infield where it was caught for the first out. Breaking off of first on contact,
Madisyn Webster was doubled off for the second out, but Sikora was able to tag from third and score for a 1-0 lead.
That was about all IC could manage for the next couple of innings. In the meantime, Beloit came back to knot the score at 1-1 on a double down the left field line in the bottom of the fourth.
Beloit tying it was the kickstart that the Illinois College offense needed. Seggerman led off the fifth inning with a walk and the next two runners reached base to load the bags with no outs for Brady. The senior's single into center field scored two runs and Sikora would later tack on another RBI for a 4-1 edge.
Reilly and Sikora each added another RBI in the next two innings to give Illinois College a 6-1 lead heading into the bottom of the seventh. Though the Buccaneers would put a two-run shot over the wall in right in the seventh, it was not enough as the Lady Blues hung on for the three-run victory.
