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Game One Box
Game Two Box
Aberdeen, S.D. – The Minnesota Morris softball team split in a pair of games today (Apr. 25), first falling 6-5 to Martin Luther, before taking a 4-3 win from Bethany Lutheran.
In the first game with the Knights, the Cougars let an early lead slip away in the middle innings and never recovered, while in the second game the Cougars held off a late Viking rally for the win.
Morris (15-15, 12-5 UMAC) scored two first inning runs against Martin Luther (8-16, 5-8 UMAC) and held a 5-3 lead heading into the fourth inning. However, the Knights answered with three runs in the top of the fourth and held the Cougars off the board for the rest of the game.
Morris followed that up by again getting out in front early, this time scoring twice in the second and holding a 3-0 lead after the third over Bethany Lutheran (13-15, 8-6 UMAC). The Cougars added one in the fifth to go up for one, before the Vikings threatened with two in the seventh for the 4-3 final.
Kelli Hamilton (Delano, Minn.) suffered the loss in game one, despite striking out a season high seven batters in the process. She went the distance for the third time in her last five starts, tying a season high with 7.0 innings pitched. The loss snaps a string of three straight decisions with a win and drops her season record to 5-6.
Kaitlyn Randall (Concord, Calif.) toed the rubber in game two, also throwing all seven innings for the third time in five outings and winning for fifth time in her last six decisions. She improves to 9-7 on the season after striking out six and allowing just two earned runs.
The Cougars knocked out 12 hits against the Knights and 11 more against the Vikings. Diane Blommel (Grey Eagle, Minn.) was again at the front of the hit parade with four on the day, and she was joined by Heather Briese (Fergus Falls, Minn.) and Ally Obernolte (St. Paul, Minn.) who each connected four times as well. Obernolte notched two in ach game, and finished as the only Cougar with multiple hits in each game.
After having her 15-game hitting streak snapped in the second game against St. Scholastica last weekend, Blommel gets right back on track with hits in both games tonight to push her average up to the .489 mark with 45 hits on the season.
Despite the loss today, the Cougars remain in second place in the UMAC standings, four games back of front-running St. Scholastica.
Barring any schedule changes they will close out the regular season this weekend when they travel to Mankato to play Crown and Northwestern on Apr. 29 and St. Scholastica and Northand on Apr. 30.
