Jacks sweep ladies in grand fashion

Friday, April 30

Jackrabbit SB Stadium

3 p.m.

South Dakota State University

Centenary

4/30/2010 9:00:00 PM | Softball

By: SDSU Sports Info

South Dakota State's Kelsey Lunn and Tina Winter both hit grand slams on Friday as the Jackrabbits swept Centenary in a doubleheader at Jackrabbit Softball Stadium, downing the Ladies 12-11 in the opener and 10-4 in the nightcap.

The sweep gives the Jacks a 17-29 overall record, 9-8 in The Summit League, heading into Saturday's series finale. Centenary falls to 9-31 overall and 3-16 in league play.

The Jacks, who needed eight innings to get the Game 1 win, opened the scoring with Lunn's first inning grand slam, her second homer of the season, to give SDSU a short-lived 4-0 lead.

The Ladies countered with seven runs on five hits and three walks, highlighted by Callie Herrington's three-run homerun, to go up 7-4 after two innings.

Centenary increased its lead to 8-4 with a run in the third, but the Jacks cut the lead to one at 7-4 in the fourth when Morgan McCabe came up with two runners on and blasted her first homerun of the season over the fence in right center field.

Jackrabbit starter Kori Seidlitz sat the Ladies down in order in the top of the fifth and Krista Honken tied the game with her fourth homerun of the season, a towering leadoff shot over the centerfield fence to knot the game at 8-8 after five innings.

The game remained scoreless into the eighth, when the Ladies broke loose for three runs on four hits in the top of the eighth to take an 11-8 lead.

Ashley Durazo open the Jacks half of the eighth with a single and then scored on a Devon Reick double to right to get SDSU within two at 11-9. Reick advanced to third on the first of three wild pitches in the inning and then scored on a Dani Broshar single to cut the lead to one at 11-10.

Lunn came up two batters later and knocked in her career-high fifth run with a single to center, setting the stage for Greta Stroh, who singled home the winning run with a single through the right side.

Despite giving up 11 runs on 10 hits with seven walks and four strikeouts, Seidlitz hung in there to earn the win, which boosts her record to 13-16.

Pam Nicholson got the start in Game 2, and quickly fell into a 4-0, as the Ladies plated four runs on five hits in the first inning.

Lucky for Nicholson though, the Jacks countered with 10 unanswered runs, including four in the bottom of the second on Winter's second homerun of the season that tied the game at 4-all.

SDSU scored its other six runs on seven hits in the fifth, including a two-run double by Winter, who went 2-for-3 on the day with a double, a grand slam and six RBI.

Nicholson picked up the win in Game 2, she gave four runs on eight hits with six strikeouts and no walks to improve her record to 4-13 on the season.

Durazo led the Jacks on the day with a 6-for-8 effort at the plate, all singles, with one RBI and four runs scored. For the day, all 12 Jackrabbits with a plate appearance reached base, 11 of them got at least one hit, 10 of them scored at least one run and eight of them finished the day with at least one RBI. The Jackrabbits as a team pounded out a total of 30 hits on the day, 15 in each game.

The Jackrabbits look for their first-ever three-game Summit League sweep at home on Saturday, when the host Centenary in the series finale at noon.