LAWRENCE, Kan. – The South Dakota State softball team split its doubleheader at Kansas on Tuesday, winning the first game 7-4 before falling in the second by a 5-1 margin.
South Dakota State is now 6-5 on the year and closed the six-game road trip with a 4-2 mark.
Game 1
• SDSU 7, Kansas 4
South Dakota State tallied 11 hits, struck out six and did not commit an error on its way to a 7-4 victory over Kansas in the first game of the day.
Madison Hope (3-1) started and threw 6 1/3 innings, striking out a career-high six batters in the win before Taylor Compton closed things with a two-out save.
Abbey Murphy was 3-for-4 and drove in a pair of runs while Baily Janssen went 2-for-3 with an RBI.
Ali Herdliska tallied the Jackrabbits’ lone double in the game, while Paige Gerdes came up big in the fifth with a pinch-hit, two-RBI single.
Down 2-0 after the first, SDSU had just one baserunner until the visitors exploded for eight hits and seven runs in the fourth inning.
Murphy started the inning with a single, took second on a sacrifice bunt and moved to third when Brittney Morse singled to left. Mallory McQuistan worked a nine-pitch walk in the next at-bat to load the bases, and Janssen followed with a single of her own to move each runner up 60 feet and cut the deficit in half.
After the second out of the inning, Dana Chavez tied it at 2-2 with her single through the right side before Gerdes and Murphy sandwiched two-run singles around Julia Anderson’s run-scoring hit to bring home another five runs and put the Jackrabbits in front 7-2.
Kansas got one back in the fifth and looked to stage a comeback in the seventh, but after scoring a run and putting runners on the corners with just one out, Compton entered and induced a pair of pop-ups to end the threat.
Game 2
• Kansas 5, SDSU 1
South Dakota State dropped the second game of Tuesday’s doubleheader 5-1.
Taylor Compton (3-4) tossed two innings in the start and allowed two runs on three hits and a trio of walks. Kendra Conard pitched the final four innings, tagged for three runs on seven hits and two walks. Both pitchers recorded one strikeout.
Andersen scored the Jackrabbits’ lone run and tallied a double, while Morse picked up an RBI to lead to the team. Murphy, McQuistan and Yanney Ponce added hits for SDSU.
The Jayhawks once against opened a 2-0 run early, using runs in the first and second innings before the Jackrabbits got on the board in the third.
With one out in the inning, Andersen doubled and Murphy and Herdliska walked to load the bases for Morse, who sliced a single into right center to plate a run and make it a 2-1 game.
That was as close as SDSU came in the day’s finale, as KU tacked on one in the fifth and two more in the sixth to pull away.
The Jayhawks’ Erin McGinley hit a solo home run. HArli Ridling went 3-for-4 with two doubles and a pair of RBIs.
Sarah Miller gave up one run on five hits with five strikeouts and five walks in a complete-game performance.
Up Next
South Dakota State is off until Tuesday when the Jackrabbits begin a six-day, nine-game trip to Clearwater, Fla., for the USF-Under Armour Showcase over spring break.
Photo from www.gojacks.com.
