A three-run home run from sophomore infielder Abbi Stierlin in game two couldn’t keep St. Thomas softball from splitting their doubleheader with North Dakota Saturday afternoon.
The Tommies (10-31, 4-7 Summit) won their first game 1-0 and lost the second game 5-4 to the Fighting Hawks (8-35, 2-6 Summit). The Tommies were coming off a two-game series at Green Bay in which they scored 20 runs with 25 hits. Despite this, they rarely connected on Saturday.
“We were having a hard time adjusting to the pitching,” coach Jennifer Trotter said.
Game one
Junior pitcher Christina Crawford pitched the entire first game for the Tommies, throwing seven strikeouts. Crawford entered the game with a 5.83 earned-run average, but no one scored on her on Saturday.
The only scoring play of the game came in the bottom of the fifth inning when junior third baseman Cassidy Carby was walked with bases full, advancing sophomore center fielder Avery Wukawitz across home plate.
Stierlin grounded out after, leaving the bases full to end the inning.
“We would get runners in scoring position, and it’s this game. Sometimes it’s that one hit in that one moment,” Trotter said.
In the top of the seventh inning St. Thomas already had two outs on North Dakota and seemed to have the third when Crawford rifled the ball to second to pick off junior outfielder Kaycee Hayes. The ball beat Hayes, but the infielder failed to wrangle it in, keeping the Fighting Hawks alive.
Junior left fielder Kaitlyn Raymond got under the next ball hit her way and ended the game.
Game two
Down 1-0 in the second inning, Stierlin hit a single, sending Carby to third, who then scored on an error.
In the fourth inning, North Dakota scored two runs before forcing a pitching change and scoring another two.
St. Thomas was able to make it out of the inning when sophomore catcher Kameron Monson tagged a runner at home before firing the ball to second for a double play.
Trotter says she told the team after the difficult fourth to “go one run at a time, one base runner at a time.”
“It takes everybody when you have to dig out of a deficit like that. It takes everybody offensively to be locked, get some walks and then put yourself in a position for a big hit,” Trotter said.
That big hit came when Stierlin returned to the batter’s box and sent junior pitcher Makaela Carr’s ball outside the fence for a three-run homer to put the Tommies down one score, 5-4.
No one scored after that, even when a deep hit from Wukawitz landed just short of the outfield fence in the seventh inning.
“Avery hits that rocket to right field any other time when the wind isn’t blowing in, that thing is a home run,” Trotter said.
Players had at-bats with as many as six foul balls, and Trotter said that the team struggled to hit the ball squarely.
“We need to do a better job squaring up that outside pitch, you know. She beat us with one corner,” Trotter said. “Our contact points are just off.”
St. Thomas will finish their weekend series against North Dakota at 11 a.m. on Sunday, April 13.
Adam Mueller can be reached at muel7541@stthomas.edu.