FORT MYERS, Fla. – Two more wins by the Kenyon College softball team over Clark University and North Central College moved the Ladies' record to 8-0 for the first time in school history on Thursday. The Ladies won in the bottom of the seventh over Clark 4-3 before pummeling North Central 17-8.
GAME ONE
Sophomore
Nicole Bishay was perfect through four innings against the Cougars on Thursday morning. In those first four frames, Bishay had 26 strikes on 31 pitches, struck out three and induced seven groundouts.
In that time, the Ladies got out to a 3-0 lead.
Kenyon's first two runs came in the third.
Sara Campagna and
Emily Buckwalter each had run-scoring singles that plated
Bella Albrecht and
Grace Finn.
A frame later, Albrecht hit a two-out single down the right-field line and scored
Madde Hyland.
Clark did manage to tie things up, though. In the fifth, an infield error with two out plated Allessia Mauro. Then in the sixth, Kelsey Joyce tripled to right center and later scored on a bunt by Olivia Capobianco. Down 3-2, Francesca Cirone plated Capobianco with a groundout to second.
The Ladies were held without a run in the sixth before winning the game in the seventh. And once more, Kenyon won in walk-off fashion with two down. Finn started with a single to center. Campagna then grounded another single up the middle which brought Buckwalter up to the plate. The junior then delivered a shot to right field scoring Finn.
Buckwalter finished by going 3-for-4 at the plate with two RBI. For Bishay (3-0), she struck out seven and allowed just two hits.
GAME TWO
A wild second inning, in which 10 total runs were scored, eight by North Central, gave the impression that neither team could stop the other's offense. By game's end, however, it was the Ladies who ended up with defensive stops while watching their offense clobber the Cardinals' defense.
Kenyon was out to a 4-0 lead against NCC in the first, highlighted by a two-run triple to right field by Buckwalter.
The Ladies added two more in the second before North Central erupted in the bottom half of the inning.
Breanna Adams nearly got out on a foul ball to the Ladies' third baseman. The next pitch she saw resulted in a run-scoring double to right center. That sparked North Central to five base hits in the next seven at-bats. Emily Miller and Elena Stevenson each had two-run singles in that span and by the end of the frame, the Cardinals led 8-6.
Remarkably, they would never score again as
Emily Pater and the Ladies' defense shut them out. Over the final four frames, NCC put just one runner in scoring position.
Pater induced seven groundouts in that time.
Offensively, the Ladies continued their outstanding early season performance. In the third inning down two runs, Finn drew a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch while Campagna and Pater delivered RBI singles.
Following a scoreless fourth, the Ladies added a run to extend their lead to 11-8 after another Buckwalter hit. Kenyon then closed with six runs in the sixth. That frame saw Campagna drive in two at one point, while Bishay and Buckwalter also drove in runs.
North Central, which has a combined 57-24 record the last two seasons, was handed its first loss in 21 games played at the Gene Cusic Classic dating back to March 21, 2017.
Next on the schedule for the Ladies are games against SUNY-Delhi and Lehman College on Saturday starting at 9 a.m.
