WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – On the final day of the regular season, Notre Dame College visited West Liberty University. After falling in game one by a score of 6-0, the Falcons bounced back to tie the second game at two, but a West Liberty home run in the seventh inning gave the Hilltoppers a 3-2 win.
Through five innings in game one, West Liberty was held to one run on two hits by NDC's pitcher
Grace Fisher. In that span, the Hilltoppers' only run came in the fourth inning, after a hit by pitch, a steal and an RBI double.
Notre Dame threatened to tie the game in the top of the fifth inning. Sophomore
Destany Blake singled to lead off the inning and junior
Katelyn DeWeese walked to move Blake to second, but the Falcons did not push a run across.
WLU added on in the sixth. The Hilltoppers scored five runs and totaled seven hits in that frame. Four separate RBI singles gave West Liberty a 6-0 lead.
Senior
Emily Marsh led the team with two hits. Since April 19, she has had five multi-hit games. Freshman
Danielle Fick stole a base and moved into second place in program history with 22 in a season. Fisher is third in program history, with 134 strikeouts in her freshman season.
The early innings of game two were also low scoring. Notre Dame had at least one base runner reach in each of the first two innings, but West Liberty put the first run on the board in the bottom of the first.
A sacrifice fly in the third inning put the Hilltoppers up, 2-0. Quickly after the second WLU run, Notre Dame's offense responded with its first runs of the day, in the fifth. Blake, once again, led off with a single. She moved to second on a sacrifice bunt, and with two out, a fly ball off the bat of DeWeese was dropped. That allowed Blake to touch home plate and DeWeese to reach second base. Sophomore
Emma Gumont then singled through the right side of the infield for an RBI to knot the game up at two.
Notre Dame's game two starting pitcher,
Allison Weilnau, was in a jam after allowing a single and two stolen bases. She walked another hitter to put runners on the corners, but got out of the inning without any damage. The Hilltoppers had a runner on third, with one out, in the sixth, but did not score in that inning, either.
Weilnau (15-12) went 6 2/3 innings, allowing three runs, two earned runs, while striking out four hitters.
However, with two out in the bottom of the seventh, Riley Conkle hit a home run over the fence in left-center field to walk it off for West Liberty and complete the sweep.
The top three hitters in the NDC order (Fick, DeWeese, Gumont) totaled three of the Falcons' five hits in the second contest.
Notre Dame will prepare for the Mountain East Conference Tournament, which is set to take place from May 5-7 at the Botetourt Sports Complex in Roanoke, Va.
