TOPEKA, Kan. – The Washburn Ichabods wrapped up the 2018 regular season with a senior day sweep over Northwest Missouri winning the opener 5-1 before rallying for a 3-2 victory in the nightcap. The Ichabods finished the regular season 39-10 going 23-3 in the MIAA. Washburn will be the No. 1 seed at the MIAA Tournament starting Thursday in Oklahoma City. Check wusports.com for bracket updates once released by the conference office.
Game 1 – Washburn 5, Northwest Missouri 1
Washburn jumped on the board in its first at bat scoring three in the frame after three straight singles by
Samantha Stallbaumer,
Emilee Baker and
Savannah Moore to load the bases,
Taylor Kirk's double to right scored two and
Halle England's ground out scored Moore staking the Ichabods to a 3-0 lead.
Washburn added another on
Taylor Kirk's two-out blast into the left field trees on her team-leading 12
th home run of the season pushing the lead to 4-0. Neither team scored until the fifth when the Bearcats pushed across their only run of the game.
Washburn added a solo run in the sixth after
Lexie Myers walked and
Courtney Todd was inserted as a pinch runner and would come around to score on a sac fly by Baker wrapping up the scoring.
Kelsee Henry picked up the win going 5 1/3 innings with three strikeouts improving to 15-3 on the season and
Lexi Crabtree recorded the first of her two saves of the afternoon tossing 1 2/3 innings not allowing a base runner for her sixth and seventh saves of the season.
England had three hits and 3 RBI in the opening game.
Game 2 – Washburn 3, Northwest Missouri 2
Washburn stranded 12 base runners, but rallied from a 2-1 deficit scoring two times in the bottom of the sixth inning for the comeback win.
After Washburn took a 1-0 lead on an
Alyssa Carney single scoring
Taylor Kirk who doubled one batter before in the third inning, the Bearcats came back scoring an unearned run in the fourth tying the score at 1-1.
Northwest added a run in the fifth to go up 2-1 setting the table for the Ichabod rally in the sixth. Pinch hitter
Lenae Salinas singled to lead off the inning and
Ashley Ruder re-entered the game to come around and score along with
Halle England on a two-run single up the middle by
Savannah Moore.
In the top of the seventh,
Lexi Crabtree relieved starter
Megan Deiter, who won her 17
th game of the season, with a strike out allowing one Bearcat to reach, but ended the game with a strikeout.
Moore and Kirk each had two hits in the game and Moore finished with 2 RBI adding to her Ichabod single-season record of 60.
