DUNDAS, Minn. – The Carleton College softball team split its first two games of the season, defeating University of Wisconsin-Superior 9-2 in the season lid-lifter before dropping an extra-inning affair to University of Wisconsin-Stout 8-3 (9 inn.).
Megan Smith paced the Knights with four hits on the day, while
Esme Song scored four times.
Game 1
Carleton 9, UW-Superior 2
Carleton (1-1) scored three times in the opening inning and added four more runs in the next frame to cruise to victory in the opener.
Jade Thach's two-run triple highlighted the first-inning rally, while Smith, Song, and
Grace Colburn had run-scoring hits in the second stanza. Carleton's other two runs came in the fourth via a RBI groundout by Colburn and a single by Thach.
Thach finished 2-for-4 with three RBI, while Smith, Song, and Colburn also had two-hit games.
Sydney Trentman (1-0) fanned seven over 4.0 frames of two-run ball (one earned), with
Rachel Block coming out of the pen to hurl 3.0 hitless frames of relief with four K's.
Game 2
UW-Stout 8, Carleton 3 (9 inn.)
The Blue Devils scratched out a run in the top of the first, but the Knights answered with a tally of their own in the bottom of the frame as
Adriana Wiggins hit a two-out double and raced home on Colburn's third hit of the day.
Carleton added unearned runs in the third and fifth innings, but UW-Stout took advantage of a pair of walks to score twice in the sixth, knotting the score at 3-3.
Neither side could break the deadlock until the Blue Devils plated five runs in the ninth, highlighted by MacyJean Cain's two-run homer.
Becca Madsen made the start for Carleton and received a no decision despite yielding only one run on two hits and two walks over 5.0 innings. Block (0-1) took the loss after starting her outing with two scoreless innings, she was solved for the five extra-inning tallies.
Carleton was limited to four hits—two of them by Smith—and four walks. This was the Knights' longest game since a 9-6 (9 inn.) win over Kalamazoo College on March 23, 2024.
Up Next for the Knights
Carleton will face Concordia University Wisconsin (8:00 a.m.) and Bethany Lutheran College (1:00 p.m.) on Sunday, Feb. 22 in non-conference games played at the Mankato (Minn.) Dome.
