CHADRON, Neb. -- March 18, 2017 -- Chadron State College softball fought hard in a pair of close Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference games in Chadron on Saturday against Colorado State University-Pueblo. After a seventh inning rally in game one gave the ThunderWolves a 7-5 win, CSC veteran pitcher
Kinsley Mason battled through her best outing of the season, allowing only two hits in six innings, and
Dallas Magnusson earned her third save in a 2-1 pitchers' duel.
CSC junior left fielder
Aspen Eubanks was 3-of-6 in the batter's box with two home runs and a double, as she was partially responsible for all seven of the Eagles' runs on the day with four RBI and three runs scored.
Center fielder
Lindsey Karlin went 3-of-5 with a walk.
"We have to start off a little bit better," said CSC Head Softball Coach Rob Stack. "We were down in the first inning of both of those games. We challenged our girls this week to start off better at home and shut them down from the get-go, from the top of the first inning, and then try to distance ourselves. We did have an opportunity in the first game to get a bit of a differential between us and them, but they're a good team. They won two one-run games last weekend against Adams State, and one of those games they scored four or five runs in the final inning to win. We knew that they have it in them to do that, just like we had it in us last weekend at Regis. We had our hands full and we knew that coming in."
Chadron State gained a two-run advantage in the noon game on timely power hitting in the second inning. After Pueblo took one run in the first,
Kayla Michel walked to lead off, and Eubanks hit her first of two homers to go up 2-1. After another walk by
Ellie Owens, a
Taylor Bauer sac fly plated her for a 3-1 lead.
The teams traded runs in both the fourth and sixth innings to make it 5-3 going into the final frame. ThunderWolf second baseman Moriah Turney's solo shot in the fourth inning was matched by Eubanks' long ball in the bottom. A couple of base hits and an error by the Eagles at first pushed across another score for Pueblo in the sixth, but the Eagles answered with a Karlin double and a single by
Zoe Humphries which plated pinch-runner
Alyssa Geist for the final run CSC would score.
In the top of the final inning, CSUP relief pitcher Lexie Martindale was able to give herself the go-ahead with a three-run blast to center, and Michaela Burpee also homered to give her team an insurance run.
CSC was unable to get anything going offensively in their last chance at bat, and went into the mid-afternoon game down one game to none.
Later the bottom of the doubleheader was decided in the pitcher's circle and in the first two innings of at-bats.
Just as before, CSU-Pueblo took a 1-0 advantage in their first turn up. One of
Kinsley Mason's two hits saw Gabby Moreno slap one over the fence for the go-ahead run.
Humphries reached on a hit-by-pitch in the bottom of the second, and pinch-runner
Katelyn Eldredge came home on a Eubanks double. Freshman
Allie Mason then helped her older sister to the win by putting Eubanks over with her second double of the day.
The rest was up to the Eagle pitching duo. The elder Mason held the ThunderWolves without a hit for the next four innings, and Magnusson closed out the win by navigating the seventh and final inning perfectly.
Another doubleheader commences at 11 a.m. on Sunday morning.
