MUSKOGEE, Okla. – The Mid-America Christian University softball team opened their 2018 Sooner Athletic Conference season on Thursday afternoon with a trip to Bacone College. The games proved to be entertaining from start to finish, and the Lady Evangels started the conference slate with a sweep of the Warriors.
MACU (10-2, 2-0 SAC) scored four times in the top of the seventh inning of game one to come from behind and claim a 9-8 win over Bacone (4-12, 1-3 SAC), and in game two, the Lady Evangels led wire-to-wire, completing the sweep with a 5-2 victory.
The first three innings of game one saw only three base runners combined between the two teams, and no runner reached third base until the fourth when MACU broke the ice. Hannah Salmon singled home Brianna Glass, who had pinch run for Hanna Harris after Harris doubled to lead off the inning, and the Evangels took the 1-0 lead. Larie Amos doubled to highlight a four-run fifth inning, and heading to the bottom of the fifth, MACU led 5-0.
In the bottom of the fifth frame, Bacone erupted four eight runs, with seven of those runs coming with two outs. The Warriors used five extra base hits to score those eight runs in the inning, highlighted by a 3-run home run from Nia Maxwell that put Bacone on top 8-5. That score remained unchanged until the top of the seventh.
Ribbin Anderson led off the seventh with a single, and Caitlin Butler reached on an error to bring Harris to the plate. Harris delivered in a big way, belting her second home run of the season to tie the game at 8-8. Larie Amos followed with a double, and Salmon singled her home to put MACU back on top. Regan Martin worked a scoreless seventh inning to preserve the victory, as MACU took the win 9-8.
Martin started in the circle, and she was lifted in the fifth before re-entering the circle for the seventh inning. Martin (1) threw a total of five and two-third innings, and she yielded six earned runs on seven hits and one walk with three strikeouts as she earned the save. Taylor Bankston (1-0) worked a scoreless sixth inning, allowing a hit and a walk to earn the win; and Griffin Gilbert (0-5) was tagged with the loss as she allowed nine runs on nine hits in six innings of work.
Anderson singled twice and scored twice in five at-bats, and she was one of four MACU players with multi-hit games. Harris homered and doubled in four trips, and she drove in three runs; Larie Amos doubled twice, scored a run, and drove in another; and Salmon had a pair of singles and two RBIs in the game.
Harris singled home Ribbin Anderson to open the scoring in the top of the first in game two, and the Evangels added two more runs on a two-RBI double from Salmon two batters later as MACU staked pitcher Courtney Anderson to a 3-0 lead before she toed the slab.
Bacone scored a single run in the bottom of the first frame, and the warriors added another in the fourth against Anderson to trim the MACU lead to 3-2. MACU scored twice more in the sixth frame, taking advantage of two Bacone errors, and that provided the final margin of victory, as MACU took the game 5-2 to complete the double header sweep.
Courtney Anderson (3-1) allowed two earned runs on four hits and three walks in four and a third innings to earn the victory in the circle, and Hannah Smiley (1-3) took the loss, allowing three earned runs on four hits and a walk as she was chased from the Warriors lineup after the first inning. Caitlin Butler (1) recorded the final eight outs for the Lady Evangels, and she allowed only two hits and one walk with one strikeout to earn the save.
MACU had only six hits in the second game, with Salmon posting the only multi-hit game. Salmon was 2-for-4 with a double and two RBIs, Harris was 1-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI, and Ribbin Anderson was 1-for-1 with a single, three walks, and a run scored. Amos and Larissa Tate each scored a run as well.
MACU will step out of SAC play on Saturday when they head north to Winfield, Kansas to take on the Southwestern College Moundbuilders (8-7). The double-header is slated to begin at 1 p.m.
