HARROGATE, Tenn. – After four straight games away from home, the 8^th-ranked Lincoln Memorial University softball team returned to Dorothy Neely Field on Saturday afternoon, meeting the same team that they faced in their last home doubleheader, the UVA Wise Cavaliers. The end result was the same as the first pair 11 days earlier, as the Lady Railsplitters pulled out their second sweep over the Cavs in 2021, bringing their home winning streak up to a whopping 17 games.

Finding home plate thrice in the 1^st and 5^th innings across an 8-3 decision in the opener, LMU fought from behind in the second contest and steadily expunged a 3-0 deficit to score five unanswered runs in the 6^th frame on their way to a 7-4 triumph to end the weekend at 9-0 thus far on the year when playing in Harrogate.
 
Game 1 – No. 8 Lincoln Memorial def. UVA Wise 8-3
 
Due to a handful of Cavalier throwing errors in the opening frame, the Lady Railsplitters (14-1, 3-1 SAC) were able to build a 3-0 cushion rather easily in the first bout of the day. Wise starting pitcher McKenna Falwell, who threw six innings in defeat at well over 100 tosses, suffered an HBP with bases loaded and allowed another score to get through on a wild pitch on the next at-bat, setting up Audrey Petoskey for a sacrifice fly-ball to give LMU the early three-run lead.

It wouldn't be the final time in Game 1 that Petoskey dealt a major blow to UVA Wise (1-8-1, 0-4 SAC), as the senior catcher eviscerated her seventh home run of the season in the bottom of the 5^th frame, pushing her absurd RBI total to 28, by far the highest figure on the roster in that category.

However, the Cavaliers' Alexis Miles bombed a solo homer right down the middle in the top of the 2^nd before Petoskey's HR, making a small dent in LMU's lead. Miles stood as one of three players for the visitors to go 2-4 at the plate in Game 1, along with Sarah Barrett and Katie Russell.

Not only was Falwell carrying a heavy load in the circle, but she was just as busy on the offensive end, whittling the lead down to one on an RBI-single in the 4^th period that scored Miles, who had doubled in her second trip after the solo homer.

The Lady Railsplitters answered the Cavaliers in the bottom of that same inning to bounce the lead up to 4-2, as centerfielder Bella Buccellato produced the team's sixth triple of the season down the left field line, setting up graduate second baseman Ty-Kella Goins for an RBI-single in the next at-bat.

Seven LMU batters came away with at least one hit in the victory, despite being out-performed slightly in that department by UVA Wise at 10-8. The Lady Railsplitters were just fine with that small discrepancy once Petoskey crunched the three-run homer in the 5^th stanza, giving the blue and gray their largest lead of the afternoon.

Junior shortstop Sierra Hucklebee put the icing on the cake in the bottom of the 6^th with the team's second dinger of the weekend, putting away the Cavaliers in the process. Wise was able to muster one final score in the last inning on a single from Russell that scored Barrett, but it was too little too late in the grand scheme of things.

Both starting pitchers went the distance in the opener, as Hayley Tamaro improved to 4-0 in the circle with six strikeouts in 30 batters faced.
 
Game 2 – No. 8 Lincoln Memorial def. UVA Wise 7-4
 
It wasn't quite up to par with the 11-strikeout, two-hit, zero-walk shutout that sophomore Emma Frost delivered in her last appearance against the Cavaliers, but the Morristown, Tenn. native's quick relief of starter Victoria Conley was enough to keep UVA Wise from dishing too much damage in the early going, which in turn paved the way for LMU to claw their way back from a three-run hole and morph that into a three-run win.

A Kaylee Jones RBI-double, Miles sacrifice fly, and passed ball miscue from the Lady Railsplitters awarded the Cavs with a 3-0 advantage after two innings in the second half of the DH. Only seeing five hits in total for the entire game, Wise was able to make the most of their early opportunities to put LMU's backs against the wall.

Luckily for Head Coach Ritchie Richardson's squad, they were more than up to the task, producing the game's next seven scores to capture their eighth win in a row over their South Atlantic Conference opponent.

Leftfielder Sami West jumpstarted the rally in the bottom of the 4^th with her second hit of the year and first RBI, bringing Petoskey around the diamond on an RBI-double. A Hucklebee single that jolted past the infield trimmed the lead to a single score in the next inning on a play that scored Buccellato.

LMU may have only needed one run to even the odds, but they would multiply that greatly in the bottom of the 6^th, racing ahead by four thanks to a pair of left-center doubles by Goins and pinch hitter Katie Tuggle, a Madison Henry single up the middle, and an Emma Webb two-RBI single across a six-hit inning.

The Cavaliers' last gasp came in the top of the 7^th on a Casey Chambers solo home run that cut the lead to 7-4, but identically to the game before, it wasn't enough to pull out the late comeback.

Once again spreading out the wealth on the offensive side of the field, the Lady Railsplitters found one hit or more from eight different batters in the Game 2 victory, bringing their hit total on the day up to 17 next to 15 runs.

Frost improved to 5-1 individually after dropping the second half of the Catawba doubleheader three days earlier, retiring nine batters on just one walk and two hits. Raychel Lapallo took the loss on the opposite side, throwing the entire outing to drop to 0-4.
 
Up Next
 
Hitting the road once more but staying inside the Volunteer State, the Lady Railsplitters will visits Tusculum on Wednesday afternoon for their third SAC doubleheader of the year, having won 19 of their last 20 meetings. Prior to the second contest with Catawba in Salisbury last Wednesday, LMU had emerged victorious in its past 10 games away from Harrogate.

Dead even at 6-6 thus far on the season, next Wednesday's battle in Greeneville will serve as the SAC opener for the Pioneers, who were forced to postpone their intended DH with 20^th-ranked Lenoir-Rhyne as the Lady Railsplitters swept UVA Wise on Saturday.

In one of LMU's longest rivalries, the blue and gray holds a 67-55 overall record against Tusculum dating back to the early 1980's, winning six out of the last eight meetings with the Pioneers. The two-parter in Greeneville is scheduled for a 2:00 p.m. start for Game 1, before the second outing begins approximately two hours later.
 
How to Follow
 
Stay tuned to LMURailsplitters.com, as well as LMU's social media platforms —@LMURailsplitter on Twitter, @LMURailsplitters on Facebook and @lmurailsplitters on Instagram — for more LMU softball coverage across the 2021 season.