The Drake University softball team slugged three home runs Saturday afternoon to sweep Evansville in a doubleheader at Ron Buel Field.
 
The Bulldogs opened the afternoon with a 2-0 win in the first game followed by an 8-4 victory in the second game that featured six combined home runs from the two teams.
 
Drake (10-25, 4-10 MVC) was led by Macy Johnson's return to the lineup as she went 5-for-6 with two runs scored and an RBI on the day. Emily Valtman sparked the lineup in the second game, going 3-for-4 with two RBI and one of the Bulldogs two homers. Libby Ryan had the other.
 
The Bulldogs scored in the first and sixth innings in the first game to push past Evansville as Nicole Timmons pitched a two-hit, complete-game shutout. She entered the circle with a 1-0 lead, thanks to an Evansville miscue to open the game. Libby Ryan led off by skying a popup to the middle of the infield that drifted off the third baseman's glove. However, the ball hung up in the high sky long enough for a hustling Ryan to reach third base. Johnson then brought her home with a groundball single to the right side.
 
Drake held that 1-0 lead until Addie Lightner led off the bottom of the sixth inning with a home run to left field. Timmons then shut the door to record the win.
 
Lightner's blast was a sign of things to come in the second game as the Bulldogs exploded for five runs in the first before the Aces could even record an out to force the Aces' starter out of the circle. The last of those first-inning runs came on a three-run homer from MaKayla Rice after back-to-back extra-base hits and a single to open up the game.
 
Drake held that 5-0 lead until the fourth inning when Evansville's Alyssa Barela hit the first of her two home runs to left field. In the fifth inning, Evansville got two solo shots from the top of its lineup as Jessica Fehr and Marah Wood hit blasts to center and left field.
 
The second of those home runs forced Drake to bring Timmons back into the circle for Mackenzie Hupke. Hupke still earned the win after going 4 1/3 innings.
 
Valtman answered that with an RBI double in the fifth inning to plate Johnson and put the Bulldogs up, 6-3. However, Barela struck again for the Aces with another solo shot to trim that margin.
 
But the Bulldogs got the last word in what became a home run derby when Ryan rocketed a ball deep over the centerfield fence that also brought Aubree Beitzinger in to score after she reached on an infield single to account for the final 8-4 tally.
 
The two teams meet again Sunday at noon on ESPN3 to close out their three-game series.