WINTER HAVEN, Fla. – The Carleton College softball team dropped a pair of games on Monday, falling 7-6 to Luther College and 9-5 to Bates College.
Game 1 Recap
Luther 7, Carleton 6
Helen Moses (Jr./Denver, Colo./Denver East),
Cassie Cunniff (Sr./Mt. Prospect, Ill./Prospect), and
Bryanna Schaffer (So./San Diego, Calif./Mar Vista) each had multi-hit games, but the Knights fell just short against the Norse (12-2), who are receiving votes in the latest NFCA top-25 poll.
Carleton (6-4) opened the scoring as Cunniff doubled and came home on Schaffer's single up the middle. Luther opened the bottom of the frame with three straight singles, sparking a three-run rally.
The Knights regained the lead after pushing across three runs in the top of the third inning.
Nikki Marsh (Sr./Salem, Conn./East Lyme) doubled, and Moses beat out a bunt to put runners on the corners with no one out. Cunniff and Schaffer followed with consecutive RBI singles.
Adriana Wiggins (Fy./Long Beach, Calif./Wilson) followed with a RBI groundout to give Carleton a 4-3 lead.
Moses singled home
Grace Colburn (Fy./Bainbridge Island, Wash./Bainbridge) the following frame to extend the lead to 5-3, but Anna Forari pulled Luther back within a run after a solo home run in the bottom of the inning.
Carleton got that run back in the top of the fifth as Schaffer reached on an error and later scored on
Laurie Avila's (Sr./Sugar Grove, Ill./Oswego) infield single.
The Norse surged in front in the bottom of the fifth. After a leadoff double, Leah Crown homered to left, tying the game at 6-6. Luther added another run against the bullpen and held on in the seventh for the narrow win.
Game 2 Recap
Bates 9, Carleton 5
The Bobcats scored five times in the top of the first inning, with four of those runs unearned.
Bates (3-1) added to the lead with a three-spot in the top of the third inning. Carleton got three of those runs back in the bottom of the frame after RBI groundouts by Schaffer and Wiggins and an RBI double off the bat of Avila.
The Knights added single tallies in the fifth and sixth innings, but the early deficit proved too much to overcome.
Marsh, Moses, Cunniff, and
Emma Kartheiser (Sr./Oronoco, Minn./Century) each had two hits in the game as the Knights out-hit the Bobcats, 11-10.
Faith Hanshaw (Sr./The Woodlands, Texas/The Woodlands Christian Academy) pitch out of the pen in both games, totaling 6.1 innings of 1-run ball.
Up Next for the Knights
Carleton plays a pair of morning games on Tuesday, March 21, beginning with a 9L00 a.m. EDT first pitch against Middlebury College followed by an 11:30 a.m. EDT start versus UW-Eau Claire.
