On Saturday March 26th the Blackburn Women's Softball team had their home opener, a double header, against Iowa Wesleyan University Tigers. This was also the first pair of conference games for the Beavers. The Beavers lost the first game by a score of 9-6. The Beavers got short gamed on the second game by a score of 11-1.
In first game of the afternoon the Beavers found themselves down early after three innings to a score of 4-2. In the fourth inning, the Beavers came up to bat and made the most of it finding two runs in the fourth innings to tie the game at four. In the bottom of the fifth inning the Beavers were able to get another run to cross the plate to make the score 5-4 in favor of Blackburn. The Beavers held onto the lead until the top of the seventh inning in which the Tigers scored five runs to take a commanding 9-5 lead. The lead was too much for the Beavers as they were only able to get one run to cross the plate in the bottom of the seventh inning.
Leading the way in hitting for Blackburn in the first game of the afternoon was Lauren Rhodes and Abigail Sutton who both homered in the first game. Rhodes, Jaclyn Elmore; Hannah Goett; Allison Howard, all recorded one RBI and Abigail Sutton recorded two RBIs. Pitching the first game for the Beavers was Jensen Ballinger who pitched six innings, gave up seven hits, 5 earned runs, and recorded four strikeouts.
In the second game of the afternoon the Beavers found themselves facing the Iowa Wesleyan Tigers ace in Samantha McIlwain who only gave up one hit and it was a home run by Jaclyn Elmore, which ended up being the only hit and run of the game for the Beavers. McIlwain struck out 13 batters out of the 22 that she faced on the afternoon. The game seemed to be a pitchers battle between Rhodes and McIlwain until the sixth inning and the Tigers were able to get 6 runs to cross the plate. The Beavers lost the second game by a score of 11-1.
The Beavers next games will be a double header on Tuesday March 29th against Missouri Baptisit in Carlinville, IL. The first game start time is set for 5:00 pm and the second game start time is set for 7:00pm.