Grace Softball Squad Splits Pair
WINONA LAKE – Grace College’s all-time leader in hits added another highlight to her softball career on Wednesday at Miller Field.
Sam Fields’s seventh-inning RBI single won Grace’s first game with Indiana Tech 3-2.
The Lady Lancers (8-16) split with the Warriors (7-14), falling 4-2 in the second game.
Olivia Winget was a standout performer with both her pitching arm and her bat in the first game for Grace. She tossed allowed eight hits and one earned run with five strikeouts from the mound and was a perfect 3-for-3 offensively with an RBI and a double.
The Warriors took their first lead of the game in the top of the fifth inning, but the Lady Lancers were swift in response in their half of the fifth. Jordan McKinley singled and eventually made her way to third base. On a wild pitch, she then scampered home for the game-tying run.
In the bottom of the seventh, Morgan Cody led off the inning with a single to center field. Brittney Thacker came on to pinch run for Cody and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt. That set up Fields’s walk-off RBI single, which she drilled to left field.
Shell finished 2-for-3 with a double and a run scored.
In the second game, Indiana Tech held a 2-0 lead after four innings before Shell tallied a major boost with a game-tying triple.
Shell came up to the plate with runners on the corners with two outs. She then blasted a triple to deep right-center field to tie the game.
The Warriors responded with two runs in the top of the sixth, aided by a two-out error from Grace. The Lady Lancers could only manage one baserunner over the final two innings.
Shell had another 2-for-3 performance from the plate to lead Grace’s offense. Alex Shipley took the loss from the mound by allowing 10 hits in a complete-game performance. Although she allowed four runs, only one was earned.
Grace will host its first Crossroads League games of the year on Friday against Mount Vernon Nazarene and on Saturday against Taylor.