Softball Splits at USSSA Space Coast

MELBOURNE, Fla.- In their first road contests of the season, Southeastern softball went 1-1 after dropping an extra-inning contest to to Goshen College and taking a 1-0 victory over the University of Michigan-Dearborn at the USSSA Space Coast stadium.
 
Game one saw 28 hits and 17 runs combined between the Fire and the Maple Leafs as the team from Indiana went on to take the 9-8 win over the Fire in eight innings.
 
After a single to lead off the Goshen second and a Fire error that brought the first run home, the Maple Leafs executed a sacrifice bunt and sacrifice fly to take a 2-0 lead after two.
 
Lauren Sekinger tied the contest in the bottom of the frame with a two-run single after Mallory Watts led off the inning with a triple and Haleigh Harrell reached on a fielding error. Three batters later, Jamie Mead doubled the Fire's run total with a two-run double into left field.
 
In the third, a double, triple, and single by the Maple Leafs again tied the contest, 4-4.
 
In the bottom of the fourth, a two-out single and stolen base by Mead set up an RBI situation for Leah Gonzalez as she gave her team the one-run lead with a single through the left side.
 
A half inning later the visiting team strung together three consecutive singles to again tie the contest and would take the 6-5 lead one batter later with a sacrifice fly into right field.
 
The deficit would increase in the sixth when a lead-off hit by pitch and two singles put the Fire down by two.
 
Two walks and two hits by the Maple Leafs in the top of the seventh put the Fire down 8-5 with three outs left to work with.
 
Southeastern scratched three across in the bottom of the seventh to force extra innings off of three hits. Singles by Nicki Wasserstrom and Riley Sanders set up Chapel Cunningham's RBI single with a passed ball scoring Sanders immediately after, moving the score to 8-7. A well-executed squeeze bunt by Mead would sore Cunningham for the tying run.
 
In the eighth, the runner placed on second via tiebreaker rules advanced to third on a passed ball and scored on a single into left field. The 9-8 lead would hold for the Fire loss and the home team would go three-up, three-down to end the contest.
 
Mead concluded game one 3-4 with three RBI's while Sanders also grabbed three hits.
 
Game two against Michigan-Dearborn saw a pitchers dual that resulted in a scoreless contest until the top of the seventh when Sekinger singled and scored from first on a double down the right field line by Harrell.
 
Sanders kept the contest scoreless in the sixth after running down a hard-hit ball into right field for the third out, stranding the bases loaded.
 
Autumn Hunter earned the win in game two after allowing just three hits through a complete seven innings. Gonzalez ended game two with a 2-3 effort.
 
The No. 4 ranked Fire will next head to Gulf Shores, Ala. to face four NAIA Top 25 ranked opponents in a three-day period starting Friday.