Ashland, Wis. – Playing their fifth and sixth games in the past three days, the Storm softball team traveled to Northland College on Sunday for a UMAC double-header. The Strom simply didn't have enough in the tank and lost a couple of high-scoring affairs against the Lumber Jills.
The Jills jumped out quickly in the first game, scoring the first ten runs of the game through three innings while keeping Crown off the scoreboard. The Storm mounted a comeback attempt, scoring twice in the fourth and once in the fifth, but the hosts prevailed in five innings by a score of 12-3.
Kiara Hurt tripled for one of her two hits in the game, but was the only Storm player to record multiple hits.
Game two saw the Crown bats wake up in a big way, with eight of the nine players in the starting lineup recording multiple hits. The game was a wild, back-and-forth, contest, with Crown jumping out to an early lead thanks to five runs in the top of the first. Northland answered back with a run in the bottom half, and then put up a crooked number in the bottom of the second, scoring seven times to take an 8-5 lead.
After three more runs for Northland in the third, Crown scored five times in the top of the fourth to pull to within one at 11-10.
The fifth and sixth innings saw both teams fail to score a run before Crown took the lead back, scoring three times in the top of the seventh to stake claim to a 13-11 advantage.
Unfortunately, the Storm wouldn't be able to salvage the split. After a lineout to start the inning, Northland recorded four straight hits, ending things with a two-run walk-off homerun to take the game 15-13.
Ally Adams went 3-4 with a walk and scored three times out of the leadoff spot and
Liz Kemp went 3-5 with three RBI and yet another double.
Also recording two hits in the game were
Maliya Martinez,
Maria Lilienthal, who doubled and homered,
Lindsay Glover,
Abbey Underdahl,
Thiery Zachary, and Hurt.
The weary Storm will get a day off Monday before playing Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday this coming week.
