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UMM 8, PC 3
UMM 6, PC 6
UMM 7, NCU 4
UMM 9, NCU 8
Rosemount, Minn. – With the postponements and cancelations piling up, the Minnesota Morris softball team had to go under the roof to get games in, playing a pair of doubleheaders in the Irish Sports Dome against Presentation and North Central on Apr. 4 and 5 respectively.
When the two days were over, the Cougars had four wins – including their first in UMAC play – Kelli Hamilton (Delano, Minn.) and Kaitlyn Randall (Concord, Calif.) each had two wins in the circle, Tara Thielke (Hancock, Minn.) had nine hits and seven RBI, and Diane Blommel (Grey Eagle, Minn.) scored six runs.
Hamilton and Randall shared starting duties on each day, with each turning in winning performances. Hamilton finished with a 1.91 ERA in 11.0 innings pitched, allowing just three earned runs. Randall, meanwhile, finished with 14.0 innings of work – including a complete game – and charted 24 strikeouts and just a .200 opponent's batting average.
Four players finished with batting averages over the .400 mark after the quartet of games, led by Thielke with a .692 mark. The senior racked up nine hits in 13 at-bats, including a double and her first career homerun while knocking in a team high seven RBI. Kristy Hoge (Aitkin, Minn.) (.500), Jessica Gordon (Columbia Heights, Minn.) (.429) and Blommel (.400) joined her in the .400 club.
Morris won 8-3 and 6-3 over Presentation, with only the first game counted as a UMAC contest. In that first game, the Cougars overcame an early 3-1 deficit, taking the lead during their four-run fifth, and sealed the game with a three-run top of the seventh. In addition to the win, Randall had the two game-tying RBI in the win, while Thielke knocked out her round tripper as part of the late rally.
In the next game the Cougars' scored single runs every inning but the sixth, and capitalized on five Saint errors for the 6-3 win. Hamilton allowed just one earned and struck out three on the game.
Kicking off the North Central series the Cougars scored in the first for the third straight time, but it was their five-run second that blew the game open. The Cougars did their second inning scoring on five hits, spurred in part by a two-run double with one out from Blommel. Blommel finished the game 2-for-2 with two runs scored in addition to her two RBI, and was one of four players with multiple hits in the game. Randall made the offensive efforts stand up with her complete game, 11-strikeout performance.
The Cougars' time in the dome then closed with their most impressive win of the season, overcoming a five-run second by the Rams and holding off a late rally in their way to the 9-8 win. The game started like the rest, with the Cougars scoring in the first, but North Central answered with five runs off of four hits in the second to take a 5-2 lead.
However, in the bottom half of the inning the Cougars answered right back with three runs to tie the game, doing so with two outs. They then took the lead with three more in the fourth and added an insurance run in the fifth. Trailing by two in the sixth, North Central got within one, but suffered the third out in a run-down between third and home to end the inning, and their scoring, as the Cougars closed out the win.
Now at 4-10 on the year and 1-0 in the UMAC, the Cougars return to action with a doubleheader at Bethany Lutheran on Apr. 9. The First pitch is set for 1:00 p.m. from Mankato.
