The Online Reflector

The No. 11 University of Indianapolis softball team defeated Quincy University in a doubleheader on March 4.

UIndy won the first game 13-1. In the top of the first inning, the Greyhounds put five runs on the board on one hit and a Quincy error. Junior infielder Kelsey Rummel reached first base on an error in left field. She then stole second and advanced to third on a wild pitch. A triple hit by freshman infielder Taylor Russell sent Rummel to home plate.

In the top of the second, three more batters scored due to a home run by sophomore outfielder Alexa Alfaro and the team took an 8-0 advantage. In the fourth, Quincy made it home for its only run of the game.

In the second game against the two teams, UIndy won by a smaller margin of 7-5. In the top of the third, the Greyhounds advanced 5-0, but Quincy did not give up and put two runs on the board in the bottom of the third.

Alfaro scored a pair of runs in the fourth, sending freshman outfielder Casey Williamson and Rummel home. The Grizzlies could not contest and UIndy took the win.

In the team’s first Great Lakes Valley Conference matchup, the Greyhounds defeated the University of Illinois Springfield in a doubleheader on March 3.

UIndy won the first game 8-0 with yet another fast start. The Greyhounds scored two runs early in the first inning. Rummel led the way with a triple and Russell sent her across the plate in the next at bat. In the second inning, UIndy scored another six runs, advancing them to 8-0. Russell went three for three with a pair of RBIs.

In the afternoon game, the Greyhounds managed a larger deficit win of 23-10. Illinois Springfield took the lead early and scored four runs in the first inning and one in the second to take an early lead 5-0. However, UIndy rallied to send nine runs across the plate in the fourth. The Prairie Stars stayed close behind as they advanced three runs of their own to trail, putting the score at 9-8.

In the fifth inning, seven Greyhound batters scored. UIndy closed the game with seven more runs in the seventh inning to take the win.

The team played a doubleheader against Charleston on Feb. 25 with a 2-1 win in the first game and an 8-0 sweep in the second.

In the first game, RBIs by Williamson and Rummel drove she and sophomore infielder Krysta Bradford in for the victory. Junior Jennifer DeMotte threw 15 strikes, allowing only one earned run from four hits.

Head Coach Melissa Frost-Fisher’s game plan hinged on these performances.

“Our goal was to put the ball in play and get on the board,” she said. “We executed our fundamentals well, which we focus on every practice.”

The Greyhounds rode this momentum into the second game, sweeping with an 8-0 victory. DeMotte batted 3-3 with three RBIs and two runs. Alfaro, Cori Eckerle and Rummel each had two hits. Junior Audrey Ernst moved to the mound, tacking her first victory of the spring season with nine strike-outs in five innings.

“The wins are nice, but more importantly, they set us up to be where we need to be going into the rest of the season,” Frost-Fisher said.

This doubleheader sweep came a day after the Greyhounds lost the first game of the year to the No. 1 ranked Alabama-Huntsville Chargers. The 5-2 loss is not necessarily representative of the competition, according to Frost-Fisher.

“The score doesn’t fully reflect the ball game,” she said. “We won a lot of small battles and made a lot of improvements, but we were outplayed at the plate.”

UIndy briefly held a 1-0 lead at the top of the third inning, thanks to a Rummel score off of DeMotte’s single, but the lead was short-lived. A Charger home run out of right field put the team over the Greyhounds, who never regained the lead. Rummel, the only Greyhound with more than one hit for the game, scored off a Williamson double, but that was not enough. DeMotte threw five strike-outs and walked two in the loss.

The previous weekend, the Greyhounds went 4-0 in their season opener at the Charger Chillout in Decatur, Ala. With victories over Rollins, West Alabama and Lander, and a 13-0 triumph in five innings over Wayne State, the Greyhounds felt right at home for the weekend.

“I feel like our conditioning is really paying off,” Williamson said. “The games felt easy. We came to focus, and we didn’t stop.”

Inclement weather conditions canceled the Sunday games on Feb. 19, but Frost-Fisher was pleased with the performances.

“We play the best of the best early on,” she said. “We were confident going in that our preparation would shine through, and it did.”