WAYNESBURG, Pa. (Feb. 27) – The Waynesburg University softball team hosted Carlow in a sun-soaked non-Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) doubleheader on Friday. The power potential of the Yellow Jacket bats was on full display, as Waynesburg swept the Celtics by the final scores of 8-0 (5 innings) and 13-5 (6 innings).
Though was she overshadowed by her offense, senior
Autumn Stemple (Morgantown, W.Va. / University) put together Waynesburg's (3-1) best performance in the circle for the young season. The veteran righty allowed just two singles and a walk over four innings of work, while also recording six strikeouts. She punched out the side in the second and made it five-straight by striking out the first two hitters in the third.
The Jackets out-hit Carlow (0-2) 10-2 in the opener. Waynesburg got all the runs it needed with a score in the first. Sophomore
Meysa Heitmann (Morgantown, W.Va. / University) tattooed her first homerun of the season to lead off the second. A Celtic error led to a second run in the frame.
The home team added four more scores in the third, two of which came from a double courtesy of senior
Kassidy Trimble (Parkersburg, W.Va. / Parkersburg South). Sophomore Riley Rohbeck (Oakdale Pa. / South Fayette) added an RBI two-bagger of her own.
Waynesburg ended the game in the bottom of the fifth when junior
Jamie Kelly (Front Royal, Va. / Skyline) singled in freshman
Lorryn Sepe (Pittsburgh, Pa. / Penn-Trafford).
Freshman
Emily Pratt (Bedford, Pa. / Bedford) tossed a scoreless inning of relief in her third appearance of the season.
Kelly, Heitmann, Trimble and senior
Madie Cicero (Willowick, Ohio / Eastlake North) tallied two hits each to pace the Jacket offense. Heitmann and Trimble scored two runs each, while Trimble logged a team-best two RBIs.
Carlow shook off a rough game one at the plate by putting up its first two runs of the season in the top of the first inning. Senior
Braylee Corbin (Petersburg, W.Va. / Petersburg) got those two runs back with her first homerun as a Yellow Jacket.
Carlow regained the lead with a score in the top of the second, but Waynesburg was just about to put the game out of the reach in the bottom of the frame. Rohbeck put her team up 4-3 with a two-run single, before Corbin unleashed a three-run homer that proved to be the game-winning hit. Sepe closed out the inning with a two-run double that put her team up 9-3.
The Celtics scored once in the third and once in the fourth to pull to within four runs of the Jackets at 9-5.
A Carlow error in the bottom of the fourth allowed the Jackets to reach double digits, before senior Bella Demark (Carnegie, Pa. / Bishop Canevin) stroked a two-run double to make the score 12-5. Waynesburg ended the game with a walk-off RBI single courtesy of sophomore
Tori Foust (Blairsville, Pa. / River Valley) in the bottom of the sixth.
Freshman
Morgan Walt (Hunker, Pa. / Hempfield) got the start in the circle and worked three innings to pick up her first collegiate win. She allowed four runs on five hits and four walks, before being relieved by Pratt, who allowed one unearned run on three hits over two innings. Another Jacket newcomer, freshman
Willow Eckles (Scenery Hill, Pa. / Bentworth) worked the sixth during which she gave up one hit and posted her first collegiate strikeout.
Corbin, Sepe and sophomore
Graeson Grubbs (Volant, Pa. / Wilmington) led the offensive onslaught with two hits each. Corbin drove in a team season-high five runs thanks to her two long balls and was one of four Waynesburg players to score two runs each.
Waynesburg will look to ride the momentum of its three-straight wins into its annual trip to the Fast Pitch Dreams Spring Classic in Myrtle Beach, S.C. The Yellow Jackets are scheduled to play 10 games in five days, starting with clashes with Massachusetts Maritime Academy and Wilkes on Sunday, March 1.
