LAKELAND, Fla. - Fire captured a pair of wins in the first games of the NAIA Weekend. Southeastern swung the bats well and in doing so were able to secure 7-0 and 5-3 wins over Indiana Tech and Point University.
Game 1: Lindsie Scholwinski, the Fire's dominant southpaw, was in rare form against the Indiana Tech Warriors. The Coeur d' Alene, Idaho native dealt a complete, one hitter game. Scholwinski baffled hitters with her mix of pitches. Throughout the game's entirety, Warrior hitters were not able to make solid contact off of the 2016 NAIA All-American.
"Lindsie was effective inside the circle today", said head coach Anna Welsh. "Anytime you get a performance like that, it energizes the rest of the team to push some runs across the plate."
The bats broke through for Southeastern in the top half of the fourth inning. Natalie Hughes led off the inning with a single, and the hit parade continued from there. Kiah Ferrell drew an error out of the Warrior defense, allowing Sammy Jacobson, who entered the game to run for Hughes, to score the Fire's first run. Southeastern added one more run when Hannah Smith capitalized on a wild pitch by Warriors' Alexis Vargo and scored from third.
Southeastern tacked on an additional run in the top of the 5th when Hughes doubled to left-center, scoring Sam Holcomb.
"Natalie saw the ball well today at the plate", said Welsh. "She saw pitches up in the zone that she could handle and drove the ball to all fields", Welsh added.
In the top of the 6th, the Fire did some serious damage when they scored four runs on five hits, making it 7-0. The score remained the same throughout the remainder of the game due to the Warriors being unable to retaliate.
Taylor Stoltz, Cat Maldonado, and Heather Faulk all had a multi-hit game for the Fire.
Game 2: At the start of the second game, Southeastern had its back against the wall. Point University jumped out to an early 1-0 lead after Shea Pendley singled home lead-off batter, Amber Anderson, who reached first base via a walk.
Point's Allie Beilstein kept the Fire hitters at bay during the first two innings, allowing only one hit.
The Skyhawks pushed across two more runs on four hits in the top of the third, but this time the Fire answered back. Southeastern brought the game within two in the third after Brandee Pietrzak's sacrifice-fly to left field scored Taylor Stoltz on a bang-bang play at the plate.
In the bottom of the fourth, Southeastern's Kiah Ferrell doubled into left-center, bringing the game within one. Stoltz put together a quality two out at bat and singled up the middle to tie the game at 3-3.
The Fire's red hot offense got things going once again in the bottom of the sixth. Sydnie Malloy doubled with one out and later came around to score on a passed ball. Faulk worked a walk that set up Stoltz's double to give the Fire a 5-3 lead.
Stef Guercio pitched a perfect seventh inning to secure the win for the Fire.
Southeastern will be back in action again tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. when they take on Middle Georgia State and Cumberland University.
