The Dominican University softball team pounded out 23 hits and scored 31 runs in a doubleheader sweep of the North Park University Vikings on Wednesday evening at the Ballpark at Rosemont. With the wins, the Stars improve to 10-6 on the season, snapping a two-game losing skid in the process.
The Stars will return to action on Saturday, opening the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) season with a doubleheader at Concordia University Wisconsin in Mequon.
Game One: Dominican 11, North Park 3 The Stars scored five times in the bottom of the first and never looked back. Freshman
Gabby Curran (Elmhurst, Ill.) laid down a suicide squeeze to plate
Marissa Burns (Shorewood, Ill.) for the first run of the game and
Catherine Conte (Elmwood Park, Ill.),
Gabi Alfaro (Aurora, Ill.) and
Armani Procter (Chicago, Ill.) followed with runs scoring hits of their own as Dominican sent nine hitters to the plate in the first inning.
Dominican scored twice in the bottom of the second and then put the game away in the bottom of the third inning, plating four runs to open an 11-0 lead. Freshman
Abby Maike (Savanna, Ill.) delivered the big hit with a bases-loaded triple to the gap in left-center. A line out and a walk later, Maike came across when Curran picked up her second RBI of the game, hitting into a fielder's choice.
Seven different players logged hits for the Stars as Dominican rapped out nine hits in the win. Alfaro and Conte each went 2-for-2 and scored two runs apiece. Dominican managed four extra-base hits including triples for Maike, Burns and
Ali Woitovich (Downers Grove, Ill.).
In the circle, freshman
Sydney Kuderna (Naperville, Ill.) moved to 4-0. The left-hander tossed four innings, allowing two runs, just one earned, on three hits while striking out three and walking none.
Game Two: Dominican 20, North Park 4 The Stars' bats picked up right where they left off in game one, knocking out 14 hits in the game two win, including four extra-base hits.
Conte broke the game open in the bottom of the second when she drove a 1-0 pitch to the bleachers in left field with the bases loaded for her first career grand slam as the Stars opened an 8-2 lead.
An inning later, Curran added to the Dominican lead belting a three-run shot to left for her first college home run.
Dominican then had its biggest inning of the season in the bottom of the fourth, sending 13 hitters to plate and scoring nine runs.
Burns, Curran and Woitovich tallied two hits apiece in the winning effort.
Michele Behrens (Frankfort, Ill.) picked up the win, her second of the season. The lefty surrendered two runs on two hits and four walks over three innings while striking out three.
