Tori Weatherford launches a home run in the seventh inning of Game 2.
ASHLAND – The 22nd-ranked Oregon Tech softball team continued to come up big in the clutch Monday, prolonging its streak and ending Southern Oregon's with 3-1 and 7-3 wins in Cascade Conference play at University Field.
Cassidy Olson and Jessi Duncan hurled complete games and combined to allow one earned run in the 10th and 11th straight wins for the first-place Owls (17-5 overall, 10-0 CCC).
The only run charged to Olson was of the unearned variety. She kept the Owls in the opener until they broke a 1-1 tie in the fifth inning with two runs, as Shauna Collins tripled in Danielle Sayres and then scored on a Tori Weatherford single.
SOU (8-10, 7-3), which had won six in a row, positioned itself to bounce back with a 3-0 edge through four innings of Game 2. But OIT struck in the fifth again, knocking out Raider pitcher Sydney White with four runs that were all unearned.
The tying and go-ahead runs scored when Tasha Silvius stroked a two-out single through the left side of the infield that brought home Tre Sullivan and Weatherford. Sullivan had earlier hit an RBI single to make the scored 3-2, and Weatherford was hit by a pitch after McKenzie Shrum's sacrifice fly brought in first run of the frame.
The Owls tacked on the final runs in the seventh, when Weatherford sent her sixth home run of the season sailing over the centerfield fence and Sadie Birch knocked a bases-loaded single past third.
Weatherford went 3-for-6 on the day, driving in three runs and scoring twice. Collins and Sayres had three hits apiece and combined to score five times.
SOU pitcher Brianne Craig managed the OIT lineup in Game 1, giving up five hits and two earned runs in her fourth straight complete game. She also pitched a scoreless inning of relief in the nightcap.
Though she was the victim of an unearned run in the first inning of the day, Craig temporarily got off the hook in the fourth when Kassie Smith blooped a game-tying double into right field.
The Raiders grabbed their first lead in the first inning of the nightcap as Ashley Lowe doubled in Alexa Gonzalez, who had reached via error. In the third, the Raiders went up three when Tyler Burke led off with a single, scored on an error, and Anderson further capitalized with an RBI single.
Lowe, Smith and Megan Scherer registered two hits apiece for the Raiders.
SOU will play its first conference road games Friday at Northwest while Oregon Tech plays at Concordia. The teams will then swap opponents on Saturday.