MILWAUKEE – The Lakeland University softball team broke out offensively in the second game and earned a split of its doubleheader against Wisconsin Lutheran College Monday evening.
The Muskies hammered out 17 hits in a 14-3 win in six innings in the second game of a Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference twinbill. Lakeland did a 180-degree turn to gain a draw for the day after its first game, when it was shut down on five hits in a 2-1 loss.
Mikayla Hilton (
Sr.-Saukville, Wis.) was 4-for-4 with three runs scored,
Calie Delisi (
Jr.-Oak Forest, Ill.) had three hits, four runs batted in and two runs scored and
Megan Laib (
Fr.-Tinley Park, Ill.) added two hits and three runs scored, all in the second game. All three were also involved in a six-run sixth inning, when Lakeland (12-16 overall, 4-8 NACC) sent 10 hitters to the plate and blew the game wide open.
Caitlin Fitzgerald (
Fr.-Chicago, Ill.) also had a two-run single in the second game, and in all 11 players had at least one hit each.
Taylor Bush (
So.-Waukesha, Wis.) earned the win pitching for the Muskies, throwing all six innings and allowing nine hits and three runs (two earned) for her sixth win of the season.
Pitching also wasn't an issue in the second game, either, when Lakeland pitchers
Niki Saviano (
Fr.-Orland Park, Ill.) and Bush combined to limit Wisconsin Lutheran to nine hits and just two runs (one earned). The host Warrriors (9-17 overall, 6-8 NACC) were even better, though, with Abby Mahsem throwing all seven innings and allowing just five hits and six walks with four strikeouts.
WLC scored the go-ahead run in the sixth, when pinch hitter Melissa Ericson hit a sacrifice fly to score pinch runner Megan Belongia. The Warriors then weathered a leadoff walk in the seventh to close out the opener.
Laib was 2-for-2 from the plate in the game and drove in the team's lone run. Saviano started in the circle and allowed nine hits and two runs (one earned) before Bush came on to hold WLC hitless in the seventh.
Lakeland's originally scheduled doubleheader against UW-Oshkosh on Tuesday has been postponed and will now be played next Tuesday, April 25 at home at 3 p.m. The Muskies are home next on Wednesday, when they will face Alverno College for two games starting at 3.
