ROLLA, Mo. – A day after being swept in a doubleheader to open its Great Lakes Valley Conference schedule, Missouri S&T's softball team picked up a pair of conference wins Monday afternoon over Truman State at the S&T Softball Field. The Miners took the opener 5-1, then came from behind and completed the sweep with a 2-1 win in eight innings in the nightcap.
Game 1 – Miners 5, Truman State 1
The opener was scoreless until the third, when the Miners (10-12, 2-2 GLVC) had a two-out uprising to take the lead.
Emma Vaughn (Pevely, Mo./Herculaneum) drew a walk, then
Rachel Smith (Monroe City, Mo./Monroe City R-1) hit a ball past the shortstop that rolled all the way to the front of the warning track that allowed Vaughn to come all the way around to score.
Bryn Wooldridge (Salisbury, Mo./Salisbury) followed with a hit through the middle to score Smith to give S&T a 2-0 lead.
Truman (8-18, 1-3 GLVC) got a run back in the fourth on an RBI double by Alex Beard, but S&T got that run back in the bottom of the frame with some aggressive play.
Baylee Jobson (Marceline, Mo./Marceline RV) reached on a throwing error to start the inning and moved around to third on a sacrifice bunt by
Elizabeth Viox (Glen Carbon, Ill./Edwardsville). After reaching third safely, the Bulldogs threw the ball back to pitcher Annabel Zimmer outside the circle and Jobson broke for home and made it safely to extend the S&T lead.
S&T tacked on two more runs in the fifth when it loaded the bases and Viox delivered a two-run single to score Wooldridge and pinch-runner
Chloe Saltijeral (North Aurora, Ill./Rosary).
Julia Kanoy (Hamilton, Mo./Penney) scattered six hits and struck out three in a complete game performance to improve her record to 2-3 on the season. The Miners had six hits themselves in the contest, two of them coming from Wooldridge.
Game 2 – Miners 2, Truman State 1
The Miners trailed heading into the bottom of the sixth, but got a run home in that inning to tie the score and won it in the eighth when
Shannon Flowers (Katy, Texas/Katy) executed a squeeze bunt that scored Vaughn with the winning run.
S&T evened the score in the sixth thanks to a pair of errors by the Bulldogs. Smith reached on the first error to open the inning, then Wooldridge got an infield single on a liner that went off the glove of the first baseman. Flowers followed by hitting a ball to third that was also mishandled and Smith came around to score the tying run.
The Miners couldn't get any more runs out of the rally, however, as Viox lined into a double play to end the inning.
Wooldridge, who retired the last 13 hitters she faced in the circle in improving to 5-6 on the season, set the Bulldogs down in order in the seventh and eighth innings before Vaughn led off the bottom of the eighth with an opposite field single. After being sacrificed to second, Vaughn moved on to third on a hit by Wooldridge to bring up Flowers, who pushed a bunt up the first base line and the throw home was late.
Truman got its only run of the game in the first on three straight two-out hits, the last by Lauren Stade that brought home Cam Patterson with the run. The Bulldogs had only three runners reach base after the opening inning.
The Miners outhit Truman 6-5 as Wooldridge and Vaughn had two hits apiece.
Missouri S&T will be back in action Saturday when it takes on Rockhurst in Kansas City, Mo., in a noon doubleheader.
