There's a vagabond quality to the start of the GLIAC baseball and softball seasons, and few venues exemplified that like the softball matchup between Hillsdale College and the University of Findlay Saturday.
Neither team's home field has thawed from this year's vicious winter, so they each played their conference openers against each other at Bluffton University Saturday afternoon, a field located around 15 minutes from Findlay's campus. The Oilers won both ends of the doubleheader, 4-3 and 9-1 on a freezing cold day in Ohio.
Hillsdale is 4-6 overall and 0-2 in the GLIAC, and is off until next weekend when its scheduled to play its home openers against Tiffin Saturday and Ohio Dominican Sunday, though the chances of those games being played in Hillsdale are minimal.
In game one, Findlay's Tori Allen hit a leadoff walk-off home run in the bottom of the seventh inning to send the Oilers to the one-run victory. The shot broke up a game that had been tied at 3-3 since the bottom of the third inning.
Hillsdale's offense was provided by freshman shotstop Bekah Kastning, who hit her first career home run, a three-run missle shot over the right-center field fence that temporarily put the Chargers into a 3-2 lead.
Kastning's bomb came on a 3-0 count, an unusual pitch to hit a home run on, particularly since she hit a line drive that was caught by the Findlay center fielder in her first at bat of the game. She drew an intentional walk in her next at bat.
Sophomore catcher Danielle Garceau was 2-for-3 with a run scored and two stolen bases in the game one loss.
In the second game, the Oilers came up with one clutch hit after another, scoring eight of their nine runs in the first two innings, all coming with two outs.
Hillsdale's lone run came on a double by Garcecau, who drove in junior Melissa Felkey, who doubled on the first pitch of the third inning. Both of those players, along with Kastning, had hits in both ends of Saturday's doubleheader. Kastning smacked her third double of the season in the sixth inning. Later in that inning, freshman Jessie Fox recorded her first collegiate hit, laying down a perfect bunt while beating out the throw. That figures to become a signature sequence in the future for the speedy Fox.