CLERMONT, Fla. – On Saturday, Notre Dame College played its first two games of the spring break trip. The Falcons fell to Minnesota State-Mankato, 10-2, and Winona State University, 6-4. The top four batters in the NDC order totaled 11 hits throughout the day.
In game one, against Minnesota State, the Mavericks grabbed an early lead in the bottom of the first.
Trialing by just one run, sophomore
Danielle Fick singled to start the second. She would score, later in the inning, on an error. After NDC's pitcher
Allison Weilnau got out of trouble in the bottom of the second, NDC went back to work in the third inning. With two out, junior
Destany Blake singled and scored right away on an RBI double by
Avery Robinson. Notre Dame held a 2-1 lead.
MSU took the lead back in the bottom of the frame, scoring twice. They would add one in the fourth, and three runs in both the fifth and sixth.
Along with her first collegiate RBI, Robinson also had her first multi-hit game and first extra-base hit. Robinson, along with senior
Katelyn DeWeese, Blake and Fick combined for five hits.
Notre Dame battled Winona State in the second game of the day. A first inning WSU home run was the only run of the contest for the first five innings.
Winona State's Abby Smith and NDC's
Grace Fisher were going head-to-head in a pitcher's duel. One run and a total of five hits were allowed through five.
Everything changed in the sixth when Winona State put five runs on the board that inning to take a 6-0 lead.
Then, it was the Falcons' offense that came to life. In the bottom of the sixth, DeWeese and Blake hit back-to-back singles to start the half inning. Two batters later, Fick hit a sacrifice fly to score one run.
In the bottom of the seventh, sophomore
Lindsay Breuer reached on an error and scored on an
Ella Collinsworth double. With only one out, Winona made a pitching change just before Collinsworth scored the Falcons' third run on another error. Blake hit a single to score a fourth run and Notre Dame trailed by just two. But, NDC was unable to get another run across the plate.
Blake finished the game with three hits.
The Falcons will play the University of Mary and California University of Pa., tomorrow.
