St. Thomas softball won their first game on Sunday against St. Catherine 5-4 on a walk-off hit from senior Sam Birling, but St. Catherine was able to break the Tommies’ nine game home winning streak in the second game, losing 5-2 at South Field.
After the Wildcats (17-9, 12-4 MIAC) got ahead of the Tommies (22-6, 15-3 MIAC) by three runs in the fifth inning, the Tommies were unable to bridge the point gap, and were forced to rely on senior pitcher Kiersten Anderson-Glass to strike out the Wildcats at the end of the second game.
“I’m always ready for anything. I felt actually better throwing the second game, I felt like I was even more prepared knowing the hitters,” Anderson-Glass said.
The Tommies are now 80-10 at South Field since April 2015.
Game 1
Anderson-Glass started the second inning of the first game by striking out all three batters, and St. Thomas sophomore Makenzie Rudy hit an RBI, putting the Tommies up by one after the second inning.
Then, in the fourth inning, sophomore center fielder Coryn Jacobson hit a home run deep into center field, scoring two runs for the Tommies. This was Jacobson’s second home run this season.
“It felt good going off of that,” Jacobson said. “We played hard. We just have to go back and work harder.”
The Tommies were tied with the Wildcats 4-4 going into the bottom of the seventh inning, when senior utility player Sam Birling hit a triple into deep right field, granting the Tommies an RBI, and leading them to win the game.
Game 2
After a short delay due to April snow, the Tommies faced off against the Wildcats in their second game of the day, and started off with two innings with no runs for either team.
That streak was broken in the third inning, after Wildcats’ junior Alex Ehde hit a home run, adding two runs to the Wildcats’ point total. The Tommies responded to that by scoring two runs of their own in the bottom of the third inning.
However, the Wildcats continued to rack up runs. The Tommies’ struggled to score after the third inning, and after a throwing error allowed the Wildcats to score two runs in the fifth inning, St. Catherine won. Coach John Tschida said that the team needs to focus on hitting.
“They chased some bad pitches, and gave them some easy outs. If they’re just a little bit more selective, we’ll get better pitches to hit, put up some runs,” Tschida said.
Junior Sarah Hudson stood out with her defensive plays at third base, where she was responsible for back-to-back outs in the third inning.
“We just wanted to get outs and get back into hitting as quick as possible. (The pitchers) were pitching a good game, and so I wanted to get as many outs for them as I could,” Hudson said.
The Tommies face off against St. Olaf April 25 next in a double header starting at 3:30 p.m.
Owen Larson can be reached at lars6521@stthomas.edu.