BELOIT, Wis. — The Lawrence University softball team nearly took a pair of Midwest Conference games at Beloit College on Saturday, but the Vikings had to settle for a split.
Beloit rallied to win the opener 5-4, and Lawrence won the nightcap 4-3.
In the nightcap, Savanna Marsicek went 2-for-5 and drove in four runs, and Tierney Duffy was 3-for-3 and scored a pair of runs for Lawrence (10-6, 1-1 MWC).
Pitcher Liz Barthels, who went 2-for-3, allowed seven hits and three runs in seven innings to pick up the win. She struck out four and walked one.
Lawrence grabbed a 3-0 lead in the top of the fourth courtesy of Marsicek’s three-run double. Beloit cut the margin to 3-2 with a pair of runs in the bottom half of the inning.
Lawrence got an insurance run that it needed on Marsicek’s run-scoring triple in the top of the seventh for a 4-2 edge. Barthels gave up a lead-off homer in the bottom of the inning, but then retired the next three in order to seal the win.
In the opener, Beloit (7-13, 1-1) scored an unearned run in the bottom of the seventh to break a 4-4 tie.
Duffy had a run-scoring single in the top of the second to tie it at 1-1, and Anna Wawiorka followed with a two-run triple to put the Vikings up 3-1.
Lawrence made it 4-1 when Duffy singled to score Belletini, who had doubled, in the fourth. Beloit tied it with three runs in the bottom of the fifth, with two runs coming on Jordyn Ciochon’s homer.
Belletini finished 3-for-3 and scored two runs, and Duffy went 2-for-3 and drove in a pair.
Kara Vance went the distance and took the loss. She allowed 10 hits, struck out four and did not walk a batter.