HARROGATE, Tenn. — The No. 18 Lincoln Memorial University softball team didn't have its best Wednesday outing, but the Lady Railsplitters prevailed and still managed to leave Dorothy Neely Field with a South Atlantic Conference doubleheader split against Mars Hill.
The visiting Lions (21-12, 5-5 SAC) got the best of the second-place Lady Railsplitters (28-8, 6-4) in the first game, winning 8-4, but LMU bounced back in the night cap as the home squad avoided a come-from-behind effort from Mars Hill with a 7-5 win.
The game two victory put LMU head coach
Ritchie Richardson two wins closer to 1,000 wins at 998, with the next opportunity coming at Coker College Saturday in the 1 p.m. doubleheader.
Despite a shaky doubleheader-opening performance,
Ty-Kella Goins and
McKenzie Henry had notable stat lines. The junior Goins went 2-for-3 at the plate, scoring two runs and pushing across an RBI with one of her two doubles. Henry, a freshman catcher, bounced back from a five-game hitless streak with her 2-for-3 effort and a pair of RBI plus a walk.
The Lions jumped out to a 6-nil lead, scoring a trio of runs in the first frame followed by one in the second and two more in the third to abruptly end
Bailey Griffith's day. Once
Justice Smith relieved Griffith (L, 10-5), another run crossed for the six-run, third-inning Lion lead.
LMU got two of those runs back in the bottom half of the inning as Henry singled in
Savannah Daniel, who started the frame with a single of her own, and then
Emma Webb's RBI-groundout pushed across Goins (HBP).
Mars Hill got the pair of runs back rather quickly, knocking across four of the Lions' 13 hits for their final two runs out of eight total. Smith tamed the visiting bats over the next three innings, allowing zero runs on one hit, but Casey Stanek (13-5) did the same to the home team.
The Lion starter allowed two runs on three hits, with the runs coming on two hits in the final frame. Goins connected on her second double, scoring
Bella Buccellato (HBP) followed by Henry's second RBI to plate Goins, but the attempted rally fell short.
In the second game, Mars Hill was able to hit
Faith Howe (W, 10-3), collecting 12 through her five innings pitched but she posted zeros across the scoreboard until the fifth inning. Goins made sure to roll over some of her power to the night cap as she blasted a solo shot over the left-field fence for a quick one-run lead.
Webb (2-for-3) followed her teammate's footsteps, roping a three-run homer — her first home run of the season — right in front of the scoreboard in right-center field for the 4-0 lead. Buccellato's bases-loaded hit-by-pitch pushed across Henry for the 5-nil run and the comfortable lead.
However, Mars Hill made it somewhat interesting as the Lions tacked on two runs in the fifth and three in the sixth inning. The Lady Railsplitters scored a pair in the fifth, too, as Buccellato doubled before scoring on
Kelsie Tuggle's triple. Goins scored Tuggle on a sac fly, making it a 7-2 lead.
Howe faced three batters in the sixth, and then Smith (S, 2) came on for her second relief stint of the day, allowing zero runs on four hits to tame the Lions for good.
