Cavs Split at Simon Fraser on First Leg of Canadian Tour
Box Score 1 |
Box Score 2
BURNABY, B.C.—Playing an evening doubleheader after travelling north of the border, the No. 24-ranked Concordia University softball team split a doubleheader (5-4, 1-4) at NCAA DII Simon Fraser University on Tuesday.
With the results, Concordia moved to 25-10 on the season and will conclude the trip with a pair of contests at the University of British Columbia on Wednesday afternoon.
Simon Fraser ended the day with an even 13-13 record on the season.
Game 1 Recap – Concordia 5, Simon Fraser 4
Concordia struck for two runs in the first and stood by to see SFU rally on two occasions before holding on for a 5-4 win in the opener at Beedie Field.
Freshman shortstop Taylor Copher gave the Cavaliers its early offense with a 2-run homer in the first. Tobey Varney led off the game with a single and soon found her way to third after consecutive groundouts. Avoiding leaving a runner in scoring position, Copher connected on her fourth home run of the season for the 2-0 lead.
SFU got one run back in the home half of the first and went on to tie the game at 2-all with a leadoff homer by Danielle Raison in the bottom of the fourth.
Both teams earned single runs in the fifth before CU plated two in the sixth with the benefit of two hits and four SFU fielding errors. Simon Fraser halved the deficit with another single run in the sixth and threatened to tie the contest in the seventh with one out and a runner at second only for CU starter Ashley Suter to induce a pair of popups to preserve the win.
Varney and Copher provided four of the teams six hits with 2 for 4 performances at the plate. Suter recorded her 13th complete game of the season to improve her record to 13-4 while her 10 strikeouts represents her fifth outing in double figures this year.
Game 2 Recap – Simon Fraser 4, Concordia 1
Once again Concordia jumped out to an early lead, this time with a solo homer to leadoff the game by Tobey Varney, but similar to the self-destructive inning SFU gave the Cavs in the opener, Concordia was doomed by three early errors en route to a 4-1 loss in the nightcap.
Following Varney’s fourth home run of the season, Simon Fraser took their first lead of the day with three unearned runs in the bottom of the first. CU starter Danielle Orvella nearly picked up her defense by eventually striking out the side, but a 2-run double by Mackenzie Bender provided all the offense SFU would need to earn the split.
Orvella would go on to allow just three hits over five frames for the hard-luck loss. In her first appearance since Feb. 22, McKenzie Marshall hurled a perfect sixth that included a pair of strikeouts.
The Cavalier offense outhit SFU 5 to 3, but stranded runners in five of the final six innings, including runners in scoring position in the second, fourth and seventh stanzas, but could not break through following the Varney round tripper.
Kelsie Hawkins picked up the win with six innings of one-run work. Bender not only provided the go-ahead run but earned the save with a scoreless seventh after allowing a leadoff walk.