GAMBIER, Ohio – The Kenyon College softball team's offense came to life Wednesday and powered the Ladies to a North Coast Athletic Conference doubleheader sweep of the visiting Hiram College Terriers. In game one, Kenyon amassed 14 hits and won 7-2. In game two, the Ladies chalked up nine more hits and claimed an 8-1 victory.

It was the top of the Ladies' batting order that did the majority of the damage in the opener. The top three hitters—Madi Maldonado, Amanda Ogata and Britny Patterson— were a combined 8-for-12 with four runs scored and four RBI. Both Maldonado and Patterson had three hits. Ogata, as well as Allison Stratman and Amanda Coyle, had two hits.

The Ladies spotted Hiram a run in the top of the third, but erased that deficit with four runs in the bottom of the inning. The big hits were a Patterson RBI double to left field, a two-run single up the middle from Grace Pilz and an RBI single to right field struck by Stratman.


The outburst turned out to be more than the Kenyon women needed, but they came right back in the bottom of the fourth inning with three more runs. Two of those three runs scored after Ogata ripped a ball to the left-center field wall for a double. That hit chased Hiram starting pitcher Brittany Zajac from the circle, where she was replaced by Shalynn Call. Patterson then greeted Call with a single that scored Ogata.

Pitching for Kenyon, Austen Whibley threw into the sixth inning before being relieved by Keely Sweet. Whibley yielded three hits to earn her fifth win of the season. She walked just one and struck out six Hiram batters.

At the start of game two, the Ladies again spotted the Terriers a run. In the bottom of the third, however, Sophie Silberman laced a double to right center that scored Nicole Horita. That tied the game up, at least until the next inning. 

In the bottom of the fourth, Stratman placed a double down the left field line that scored both Lauren Graf and Sweet. Later in the inning, Coyle utilized her speed to get got on base via an infield single that scored Stratman, who finished the doubleheader 4-for-6 with two runs scored and three RBI.

The Ladies did not call it quits there. With a 4-1 lead, they finished off the Terriers by plating four more runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. Maldonado got back into the swing of things with an RBI single to left field that scored Stratman, Silberman later drew a bases loaded walk and then Pilz smacked a single into left field that brought home the Ladies' final two runs of the game.

Whibley also started game two in the circle for Kenyon, but after giving up four hits and an unearned run in the first inning, she was lifted in favor of Sweet, who worked the rest of the game to pick up her eighth win of the season. In six innings, Sweet allowed just two hits. She walked four and fanned two.

The pair of wins pushed Kenyon's overall record to 13-21, but more importantly they evened out the Ladies' NCAC record at 5-5 and kept their hopes alive for a spot in the conference's postseason tournament.

Hiram slid to 7-21 overall and fell out of the conference with a 2-8 NCAC mark.