Game 1 box score: Hillsdale 5, Ursuline 3
Game 2 box score: Ursuline 9, Hillsdale 8 (8 inn.)
It was a bittersweet home finale for the Hillsdale College softball team Tuesday afternoon.
A day after celebrating its senior class, the Chargers played their final two home games of the 2019 season, splitting a doubleheader with Ursuline College with a 5-3 win in the opener and a 9-8 extra-innings loss in game two.
Hillsdale enters the final weekend of the regular season with an 18-22 overall record, and 12-8 in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference.
In the opener, the Chargers got all the runs they needed with a five-run first inning. The scoring started with the second batter of the game when Amanda Marra doubled home Katie Kish. Red-hot cleanup hitter Jessica Taylor added an RBI single while Natalie Walters drove in two with a single.
That was all the cushion pitchers Dana Weidinger and Julia Sayles needed, as they held down the Arrows over the final six innings. Weidinger won her second straight decision, pitching five innings. Sayles earned the six-out save with a strikeout and just one hit and no runs allowed.
Seven different players all had hits in the win for Hillsdale. Sam Catron drew a walk, scored and run and had a hit, while Anna Dixon chipped in a hit from her No. 9 position in the lineup.
Catron went 3-for-5 with a run scored, and her two flyball outs were caught at the warning track in game two. Madison Stoner also came through, going 2-for-3 with 2 RBI in the second game of the day. Kish had two hits in her final home appearance while Marra singled in her final home at bat.
PHOTO: Todd Lancaster