Saturday was senior day for Ashley Lowe, Julia Willison, Sierra Anderson and Karlie Stephens.
ASHLAND – Northwest broke out of its month-long hitting slump at an inopportune for the Southern Oregon University softball team Saturday, but the Raiders fought back to salvage a split in their final doubleheader of the season at University Field.
Bethany Bacon smacked a solo homer, Ricki Tacdol hit a two-run single and Kelli Peckham preserved a 6-3 win by escaping bases-loaded jams in each of the last three innings as the Eagles (2-28 overall, 2-22 Cascade Conference) snapped a 20-game losing streak in Game 1. After their 10 hits went for naught in the opener, the Raiders (13-17, 12-10) made the most of 11 more in Game 2 and capped a 9-1 win with Ashley Lowe’s game-ending two-run double with one out in the fifth.
With fifth-place Corban’s split against College of Idaho, the fourth-place Raiders trimmed two games off their magic number, which stands at three to secure a spot in the four-team CCC tournament with six games remaining. They’ll start at OIT on Monday before finishing up at Northwest and Concordia next weekend.
Gina Ayala went 4-for-6 for SOU, Megan Scherer went 4-for-7 with two RBI – making her 8-for-13 on the weekend – and Lowe added three hits.
Ayala and Julia Willison had RBI singles during SOU’s three-run first inning in Game 2. Scherer, Craig and Lowe had the run-scoring hits in a six-run fifth, locking down Brianne Craig’s complete-game win. She struck out six and allowed four hits without an earned run.
“The team did a good job making changes the second game,” Raiders coach Kim Fritts said. “Bouncing back after the last few games was not easy. I’m proud of them and I look forward to the team finishing the season strong.”
The loss in the opener was the Raiders’ fifth straight of the week. Despite giving up 10 hits, Peckham kept them off balance until the late innings.
The 3-0 lead provided by Bacon and Tacdol was padded in the sixth when Reimer hit a run-scoring single and Katelyn Riedinger’s mishandled grounder plated two more, making it 6-1. They’d scored more than three runs just twice since their last win, March 14 against Eastern Oregon.
Scherer’s two-run single cut into the lead in the sixth. In the seventh, with two outs and none on, the Raiders put the tying runs on courtesy of a fielding error and two singles. Peckham ended the threat by inducing a groundout.
Alyssa Gonzalez led the Eagles with four hits on the day.
For the Raiders, Sulie Augustine had a hit in each contest to extend her streak to six games. Sierra Anderson scored three times, and Willison went 2-for-3 in Game 2.