Jacks split double dip with ?Dons

Friday, April 9

Fort Wayne, Ind.

12 p.m. ET

South Dakota State University

IPFW

4/9/2010 5:00:00 PM | Softball

By: SDSU Sports Info

FORT WAYNE, Ind. - The South Dakota State softball team equaled its win total from last season on Friday with a doubleheader split with IPFW in Summit League action. The Mastodons dominated in an 11-1 Game 1 win, while the Jackrabbits hung on to win Game 2 by the score of 10-9.

The Jacks end the day with a 10-24 overall record, 4-4 in The Summit league, heading into Saturday's third and final game of the series. IPFW enters the final game of the series with a 21-11 overall record, 12-2 in league play.

The Mastodons scored two runs each in the first and second inning of the opener to take a commanding 4-0 lead, and then added two more in the fourth inning to go up 6-0.

SDSU got on the board in the top of the fifth on an two-out RBI single by Devon Reick that scored Pam Nicholson, but the 'Dons countered with five runs in the bottom of the fifth, capped by a Rachel Staschuk grand slam that ended the game via the eight-run rule.

The Jacks fortunes slowly changed in Game 2, when Dani Broshar got the Jacks on the board with an RBI double that scored Ashley Durazo, the first of two doubles for Broshar on the day.

IPFW tied the game with one run in the bottom of the third, but the lead did not last, as the Tina Winter hit an error-aided three-run single that scored Broshar, Kelsey Lunn and Greta Stroh to put the Jacks back on top 4-1.

After holding the Mastodons scoreless in the bottom of the fourth, it looked like the Jacks put the game away with a six-run fifth inning, highlighted by Kori Seidlitz's first-career homerun, a three-run blast that put the Jacks up 10-1.

Down to their final out in the fifth and in danger of losing via the eight-run rule, the 'Don's pushed across a pair of runs to make the score 10-3, thus extending the game.

IPFW kept the Jacks off the board in the top of the sixth, and then made things interesting by scoring six runs on six hits in the sixth inning to get within one at 10-9.

Nicholson came in to quell the rally in the sixth and then sat down the 'Dons in order in the seventh nail down the win and pick-up the first save of her career.

The Jacks and Mastodons meet to decide the series on Saturday at 11 a.m.