Baker Softball Splits Tuesday Tilt with Culver-Stockton

BALDWIN CITY - Pushing back the series a few days due to weather, Baker softball split its conference doubleheader with Culver-Stockton here Tuesday afternoon at Cavaness Field.

BU came out on top of an intense, high-scoring opener, 7-6, before falling in the second game, 7-1, in a matchup between two teams sitting near the edge of the top eight in the Heart standings.

Baker used 12 hits, three doubles and a Taryn Hull home run to outlast C-SC in a combined 13-run slugfest in game one. Hull went 3-for-3 at the dish and drove in four of the seven runs for BU, highlighted by a two-run homer in the bottom of the third.

After Culver-Stockton opened the scoring in the top of the first, BU upped the ante with a five-run bottom half to jump out to a 5-2 lead. With four of the first five hitters reaching in front of her, Gracie Gallagher knocked in a pair with a bases-loaded single to tie the game.

Ashlee Jackman followed with an RBI double to put BU in front and Hull tagged the first of her two multi-RBI hits of the game to cap the five-run opening frame.

Culver-Stockton cut it to a one-run score in the top of the second after bringing a couple of runs across for the second straight inning.

Then, with two down in the third, Hull smacked her first homer of the spring with a two-run bomb to straightaway center to give the home-sided Wildcats a crucial three-run cushion.

After entering in the third in relief, Jordyn Beck settled down the C-SC lineup for the most part, allowing just one hit in her 4.1 innings of work, though that lone hit was an unfortunate two-run home run by C-SC in the fifth that trimmed the lead to 7-6.

Beck held steady in the final two innings, working around a two-out walk in the sixth before firing off a 1-2-3 seventh to complete Baker's one-run victory.

In game two, it was the hosts who couldn't keep up with Culver-Stockton this time, with C-SC outhitting BU, 10-4, and scoring seven runs across the middle four innings to force the series split.

C-SC was once again first to the scoreboard, plating a pair of runs in the top of the second to snag a quick 2-0 lead. BU had a quick response, though, as an RBI single from Lily Rowe drove in Jackman to cut the deficit to 2-1.

Culver-Stockton took advantage of some hard-hit balls and costly BU errors to spread the rest of its runs out, launching a solo home run in the third to make it a two-run ballgame. The visitors added two more in the fourth to give them some breathing room and put things out of reach for good with two final runs in the fifth.

Meanwhile, Baker was held in check after its lone run in the bottom of the second and managed just one hit in the final four innings as the C-SC starter finished with one walk allowed and one strikeout in an efficient outing.

Moving to 18-15 overall and 6-8 in Heart play, Baker will return to Cavaness Field on Saturday, April 11, to host Peru State for an afternoon doubleheader starting at 2 p.m. in Baldwin City.

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