The Shippensburg University softball team swept its non-conference doubleheader at Bowie State on Tuesday, defeating the Bulldogs by scores of 9-5 and 10-2 on a sunny and warm afternoon in Prince George's County in Maryland.
Shippensburg (6-4), playing for the first time in 10 days, cranked out 27 hits and batted .429 as a team. The Raiders totaled six extra-base hits. Bowie State (3-10) stole nine bases and drew nine walks but committed four errors.
Junior shortstop
Caitlyn Martell was 5-for-8 on the day with three RBIs. Senior catcher
Aryanna Briddell slammed two home runs in the first game of the doubleheader – she finished the day 3-for-5 with a double, sacrifice fly and four RBIs in addition to the round trippers.
Sophomore leadoff batter
Emily Lafferty singled four times, scored four runs and stole two bases. Fellow sophomore
Brie Wilmot reached base five times (three singles and two walks) and had a pair of RBIs, while classmate
Sarah Sabocsik had a triple, two singles and three runs scored.
Tuesday marked the first meeting between the two teams since last year's NCAA Atlantic Regional Tournament in which the Raiders posted a 9-2 victory over the Bulldogs at Creekview Park in Stroudsburg.
Shippensburg is back in action tomorrow, hosting Frostburg State at 2 p.m. in a doubleheader at Robb Field.
Shippensburg 9, Bowie State 5
Briddell slugged a pair of homers and a sacrifice fly in the Game 1 victory, finishing 2-for-3 at the plate with four runs driven in.
Briddell blasted a two-run shot in the top half of the second, and SU rallied for three additional runs in the fifth. Junior
Rilee Ehrlacher stroked an RBI single in the frame and junior
Lindsey Haser (New Cumberland, Pa./Trinity) laced a two-run double to make it 5-0.
Shippensburg answered a Bowie State run with three more in the sixth. The inning started with a Briddell solo shot and included a two-run single off the bat of Wilmot.
Bowie State mounted a major comeback in the bottom half of the inning, as the first five Bulldog hitters reached base against senior
Alicia Ball to load the bases with two runs across and nobody out, 8-3.
Shippensburg called upon freshman reliever
Dani Hayward. With the tying run in the on-deck circle, Hayward struck out the next three batters in impressive fashion to get out of the bases-loaded jam. The right-hander then held the Bulldogs to two runs (one unearned) in the seventh to record the save and finish off the Game 1 win.
Ball was strong through the first five frames to earn the win. She struck out a total of nine Bulldog hitters and was charged with three earned runs.
Six different Raider hitters finished with two hits. Ehrlacher, Wilmot, Lafferty, Martell and Sabocsik joined Briddell with multi-hit efforts in the opener.
Freshman
Grace Ciochetto recorded her first career hit with a pinch-hit single in the top of the seventh.
Taylor Dawkins (2-for-3, 2 runs scored) went deep for the Bulldogs in the bottom half of the sixth.
Shippensburg 10, Bowie 2 (5 innings)
Martell and sophomore
Reagan Bauman each connected on a pair of RBI singles as SU defeated Bowie State in the nightcap.
Martell punched an RBI-single to right to give the Raiders a first-inning lead. Bauman singled home a run during a four-run rally in the second, then drove home another in the fourth to make it a 6-1 game.
Martell added an RBI single in the fifth, and three additional runs scored via passed balls or wild pitches to give SU a 10-1 cushion.
Sophomore
Madalyn Dyer held the Bulldogs to single runs in the first and the fifth. She scattered six hits and three walks and struck out five over five frames to earn the victory.
Of the Raiders' 12 hits in Game 2, 11 were singles. Martell finished with a game-high three hits. Lafferty totaled a pair of singles and three runs scored.
Senior
Ally Weaver registered a walk, single, RBI and two runs scored.
Coreena Dunham doubled during a 2-for-3 outing for the Bulldogs.
