SATURDAY RECAP
Game 1 Box score: Hillsdale 9, Fairmont State 4
Game 2 box score: Hillsdale 23, Mercy 3
The warmth of South Carolina did wonders for the offense of the Charger softball team Saturday.
Hillsdale improved to 3-1 on the new season thanks to a pair of decisive wins on the second day of its first trip. In the opener, the Chargers beat Fairmont State for the second straight day, 9-4.
In the second game, the team set a school record for runs scored in a game in a 23-3 5-inning romp over Mercy (NY) College.
In Saturday's opener, Hillsdale scored in four of the game's first five innings, building an 8-1 lead through 4 ½ innings. The Chargers played an error-less game, while taking advantage of five committed by their opponent.
Four players had multi-hit games versus Fairmont State. Freshman Amanda Marra went 2-for-4 with 2 RBI, while freshman Carly Gouge recorded her first collegiate hit and run batted in, going 2-for-3 with a run scored and a run driven in.
Junior Cassie Asselta had a triple and a double with two runs scored, and sophomore Kelsey Gockman started off her big day with a 2-for-3 effort with 2 RBI. Senior Sarah Klopfer got her first win of the season, striking out three with no walks in seven innings.
Saturday's second game saw a 22-year-old school record fall, as the Chargers blasted Mercy College, a school based in New York.
Hillsdale scored three in the first, six in the second, nine in the third and five in the fourth before the game ended in the top of the fifth due to NCAA mercy rules.
Gockman drove in a career-high 5 runs with two doubles to lead the offense for Hillsdale. She hit a bases-loaded double that set the tone for the game in the second inning.
Nine different players had RBI, and Katie Kish and Sarah Grunert each scored four times in the win for Hillsdale. Grunert also set a career-high with 5 RBI, going 3-for-3 at the plate, picking up two doubles. Senior Ainsley Ellison was 2-for-2 while sophomore Haley Lawrence was 2-for3. Marra scored three runs and had a single and two walks, while senior Julia Kosco scored a career-high three runs for the Chargers.
Eleven of Hillsdale's 23 runs in the game were unearned.
UP NEXT: The Chargers have four games against some tough opposition Feb. 26-27 in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
FRIDAY RECAP
Box score: Hillsdale 11, Fairmont State 5
Box score: Francis Marion 5, Hillsdale 1
The Hillsdale College softball season got off to one of its earliest starts in many years Friday afternoon in South Carolina. The team hasn't practiced outdoors once since the fall.
That rust wasn't evident in the team's season opener.
The Chargers racked up 14 hits in an 11-5 win in Friday's opener versus Fairmont State. In the second game, the bats were quieted a bit in a 5-1 loss to Francis Marion. Hillsdale is 1-1 after the first day of the new season.
Hillsdale led from the get-go against Fairmont State, scoring three runs in the top of the first inning and never looking back.
Junior first baseman Cassie Asselta crushed a grand slam home run as part of a four-run fourth inning that broke the game open. She brought home freshman Katie Kish, senior Sarah Grunert and junior Bekah Kastning, who each singled to open the inning.
Asselta was 2-for-4 with a career-high 5 runs batted in for Hillsdale in the win. Kish, making her collegiate debut, led off and started at shortstop. She went 2-for-4 with 3 runs scored.
Another freshman, second baseman Amanda Marra, went 2-for-4 with 2 RBI and a run scored. Sophomore Haley Lawrence also drove in a run and had two hits, and senior outfielder Ainsley Ellison went 2-for-4.
Grunert, who went 2-for-3 at the plate, got the win on the mound. Senior Sarah Klopfer strck out three batters in her 1 2/3 innings pitched.
Francis Marion held Hillsdale to just four hits in the second game, just twio coming after the second inning. FMU held a tight 2-0 lead until the seventh, when it plated three to create breathing room.
Sophomore Kelsey Gockman was 2-for-3 in the loss. Grunert doubled home freshman Carly Gouge for the team's only run. It's worth noting that while Friday's second game was Hillsdale's second of the season - and second outdoors on grass since May - it was Francis Marion's ninth game of the season. The Patriots improved to 7-2 with the win.