Box Score Game One | Box Score Game Two | Season Stats
BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Jennies softball opened their season at the Eight-State Tournament hosted by Arkansas-Monticello in Bentonville, Ark. UCM played the first two of six weekend games against Henderson State and Northwestern Oklahoma State.
Game One - Henderson State 7, UCM 3The Jennies fell behind early, giving up three first inning runs on a pair of home runs from Sarah Gipson and Ashlyn White. UCM got two back in the bottom half of the inning though, as
Lauren Mabe plated a pair of runs with a single.
The game remained 3-2 until the fifth inning when the Reddies scored four unearned runs on a grand slam from Morgan South, giving them a 7-2 lead.
Lindsey Dawson doubled home
Madison Hood in the bottom of the fifth to end the scoring.
Katie Shockley went the distance for the Jens, giving up seven runs, two earned on five hits with five strikeouts. Seven different Jennies sprayed the seven team hits, with Dawson's double the only one going for extra bases.
Game Two - Northwestern Oklahoma State 5, UCM 4 - 9 inningsThe Jennies and the Rangers remained scoreless until the fourth inning when Mabe got the Jennies on board with the team's first home run of 2015, a solo shot to center. In the fifth, Mabe picked up her second RBI of the game, and fourth of the day, driving home
Jakki Prater with a double to left to put the Jens up 2-0.
Northwestern Oklahoma answered with a run in the bottom half of the fifth on a Sandoval single to cut the lead in half.
The Jennies again made it a two-run game in the seventh as Prater's ground-out to short scored
Ali Jo Rogers.
UCM got the first two outs in the seventh, but it was the third that proved elusive. The Rangers scored a pair of runs to tie the game at three apiece on two hits, a walk and a hit batsman, sending the game into extra innings.
The Jennies broke the 3-all tie in the top half of the ninth inning as Rogers laced a one-out single and stole second before Prater drove her in with a single down the right field line, giving UCM the 4-3 lead.
The Rangers quickly tied the game at four on a base hit by Miller and had runners on the corners with nobody out. The Jennies recorded two-outs, including Dawson cutting off Anderson at the plate trying to score on a grounder to second, keeping the game tied at two. But McGraw hit a double to center field to give the Rangers the game, 5-4.
Prater threw 7.2 innings in the circle giving up three runs, one earned, eight hits and stirking out six. She also picked up three hits in five at bats at the plate, driving in two runs and scoring another.
Rogers and Mabe each contributed a pair of hits and Rogers scored two of the Jennies' four runs.
Tomorrow UCM continues the Eight-State Tournament in Bentonville, Ark. taking on Illinois-Springfield at 9 a.m. followed by William Jewell at 11 a.m.
