Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 GAMBIER, Ohio – With one swing of Chelsea Delaney's bat, the Kenyon College Ladies softball team salvaged a home split with the visiting Denison University Big Red. The Ladies dropped game one of the Thursday doubleheader, 1-0, but in extra innings of game two, Delaney delivered a two-run, walk-off blast to give Kenyon an 8-6 victory.

The split moved Kenyon's overall record to 21-12 and set a program record for wins in a season. The previous record was 20, set by the 2006 Kenyon club. The Ladies are also now 9-5 in the North Coast Athletic Conference standings and significantly increased their chances of making the conference's four-team postseason tournament. Currently, there are five teams vying for those four spots. DePauw University, the team still left on Kenyon's schedule, leads the way with a 12-2 NCAC record. The Ladies sit in second place with Allegheny College, which is also 9-5. Wittenberg University and Denison are tied for fourth with identical 8-6 records.

The Ladies actually worked themselves into a jam early in game two. During the top of the second inning, they had three defensive lapses, including a dropped pop up. The miscues led to four Denison runs, three of which were unearned.

In the bottom of the third, the Ladies started working out of the jam. Three straight singles from Delaney, Lindsey Susolik, and Emily Prehoda led to a couple of Kenyon runs. A Denison error yielded another run and pushed the Ladies to within one, at 4-3.

In the top of the fourth inning, Denison got a two-run homer from Julie Rooney, but the Ladies retaliated with three runs in the bottom of the inning. Jamie Samuel and Delaney got things going with back-to-back doubles. Susolik then blasted a two-run homer to left center and evened up the game at 6-6.

The score remained deadlocked until the bottom of the eighth inning. With one out, Samuel singled to centerfield and set the stage for Delaney's dramatic game-winning homer to left center. The home run was Delaney's eighth of the season, tying the program record. She ended up going 3-for-4 with three runs scored and three RBI in game two. Samuel was 3-for-5 with two runs scored and Susolik was 3-for-4 with two runs scored and two RBI.

Game one was a completely different story. Denison's starting pitcher, Rebecca Dyer, shut out the Ladies on just two hits. Those two hits were a bloop single from Samuel in the first inning and single down the leftfield line from Prehoda in the second inning. With hits in both ends of the doubleheader, Samuel extended her hitting streak to 16 games.

 Kenyon starter, Maddy Stark, who earned the win in game two, gave up just four hits to Denison in game one. Unfortunately, three of those hits came in order during the fourth inning. With one out, Denison's Gretchen Staubach singled up the middle and Jessica Edwards followed with a single to left. Rachel Laughlin, the No.  4-hitter, then laced a shot off the leftfield wall. Staubach scored, but the Ladies caught Edwards in a run-down to end the threat.

Stark, who continues to handle all of Kenyon's pitching workload, tossed a combined 15 innings Thursday. She gave up 17 hits, but just four earned runs. She walked three and struck out 11. In the process, she moved to within three strikeouts of Kenyon's single-season record (110, set by Denise Darlage in 1999).

Kenyon will wrap up its regular-season schedule at home Saturday against DePauw. That important NCAC doubleheader is scheduled to start at 1 p.m.