Senior Night at the Diamond ends in a split

Ahead of the four games they played in the past week, the Minnesota State softball team appeared in the NCAA Central Region Rankings. This was the first installment of the list, so the teams were simply listed in alphabetical order.

Over the past five days, the Mavericks played in two series, the first against Winona State and the second against Wayne State. They split against both teams, winning the first and dropping the second each time. 

In their first game Thursday, the Warriors got on the board first, scoring on an RBI single with two outs in the third. However, that would be the only run that McKayla Armbruster would allow. In the fifth inning, the Mavs struck back, scoring two runs courtesy of Kylie Sullivan’s triple. The Warriors would fight back in the sixth and seventh, putting runners in scoring position, but to no avail. The Mavericks won the first game, 2-1.

In the game that immediately followed, the Mavericks were unable to get the bats going as they fell to the Warriors, 4-0. The Warriors got on the board in the third inning, and held onto their lead. The Mavericks had a chance to score in the fifth, loading the bases with no outs. However, a fielder’s choice and a double play prevented any runs from being scored —a worst-case scenario for the Mavs. The Warriors added three more runs throughout the game to make the 4-0 final score.

“In the first game, I felt very fortunate to get out of there with a win,” said Mavericks head coach Lori Meyer in a press release posted to the Maverick Athletics website. “We contained them, but they made it hard on us. In game two, we didn’t do what we had to do offensively. We have to be able to get out of innings defensively with two outs.”

Three days later, the Mavericks trotted back out onto the Diamond for Senior Night against the Wayne State Wildcats.

The Mavericks completely controlled the first game, capturing a 1-0 lead in the first inning, added another run in the second and fended off the Wildcat offense. 

The Wildcats got on the board in the third, however, cutting the Mavericks’ lead to 2-1. The Mavericks responded one inning later with two more runs, and added a final run in the fifth. Game one of senior night was a 5-1 win for the home team. However, the real blunder for the Wildcats was leaving 10 runners on base and committing four errors.

Game two got off to a slow start, as the Mavericks were the first team on the board in the bottom of the third when they scored their only two runs of the game. The Wildcats responded immediately, putting up three runs in the fourth, essentially sealing the game. 

The 3-2 score remained the same until the top of the seventh inning, when the Wildcats tacked on two more runs to give us a final score of 5-2 after the Mavericks failed to score in the bottom of the seventh. This time around, the Mavericks left ten runners on base and committed four errors, beating themselves just as the Wildcats did in the first game. 

“We were lucky to win game one. We won because we capitalized on their mistakes,” Meyer said. “In game two we beat ourselves. When you leave runners on base every inning and commit that many errors, you don’t deserve to win.”

The Mavericks will take the field next on the road against Southwest Minnesota State on April 27, before they take on Augustana on the 28th for the regular season finale. Saturday and Sunday’s doubleheaders begin at noon.

Header Photo: The Minnesota State softball team has appeared in the first edition of the NCAA Central Region rankings. (Courtesy Maverick Athletics)

Write to Hayden Lee at hayden.lee@mnsu.edu