DES MOINES, Iowa – On a blustery, windy Saturday afternoon the Drake softball team went 1-1 on the diamond against the visiting Valparaiso Beacons. The Bulldogs dropped the first game, 6-3, but rallied in game two with a 5-1 victory.
Valparaiso 6, Drake 3
The Bulldogs and Beacons traded runs in inning number one of game one to get the day started at Buel Field. Valpo was first on the board as Madison Vrastil led off the game with a double in the left center field gap and eventually came around to score on a base knock by Cadan Brinkman.
In the home half of the first, Drake drew even after
Kiley Kindelspire reached base and advanced to second off a fielding error by Valpo. A couple of batters later Kindelspire's freshman teammate,
Pearson Hall, drove her with a hit through the right side of the infield.
Following a scoreless second, Drake took its first lead in the third. The Bulldogs were in a prime position to score with runners on the corners and just one out when
Tatum Aragon stepped into the batter's box. Aragon, who leads the Bulldogs in hitting, pulled a surprise move and laid down a squeeze bunt allowing
Lili Gonzalez to race home beating the play at the plate and put the Bulldogs up 2-1.
Valpo played copycat in the fourth inning and tied the game back up with a successful squeeze play of its own, but
Haley Schroeder went deep with her first her first homer of the season to lead off the home half of the fourth and put the Dogs right back in front.
The fifth inning is when the Bulldogs ran into trouble, however. Drake committed three errors in the frame which allowed the Beacons to stay at the plate, and it turned costly due to a three-run home run off the bat of Mack Gallager.
Valpo added an insurance run in the sixth and completely took the momentum out of the Bulldogs offense with Azalya Lopez coming into to shut the door from the pitcher's circle.
Drake 5, Valparaiso 1
Right back at it were the Bulldogs for game two and they quickly jumped ahead using back-to-back jacks from Hall and
Ava Husak in the first inning to go up 3-0. Hall propelled herself into the team lead with seven homers after her two-run blast, while Husak tallied her fifth long ball of the season.
Getting the start for Drake in the pitcher's circle for game two was
Jayme Scheck and she delivered tossing 4.1 innings with six hits allowed, one run, and three strikeouts.
The Drake defense also stepped up in a big way in game two making good on those costly errors from game one.
Arguably the biggest play of the game came in the fifth inning as Valpo threatened with runners on the corners and two outs. It was a quick snap throw by catcher
Emily Veschak down to third that back picked the Beacon runner to end inning and get the Bulldogs out of a jam.
The Beacons threatened again in the sixth opening the frame with consecutive base knocks, but relief pitcher
Ashlynn Sheets worked her way out of it producing back-to-back infield popups to keep the Bulldog lead intact.
Since the back-to-back home runs in the first inning, the Drake offense was kept relatively quiet for the remainder of the contest. But the Bulldogs did add two runs off two errors from Valpo all in one at-bat in the bottom of the sixth.
Gonzalez roped a grounder out to short, which was fumbled and as Gonzalez tried to advance to second the throw to get her sailed back into the outfield.
Natalee Watts was ahead of Gonzalez on the base paths and scored easily off the second error, while Gonzalez got right back up and sprinted around the bases all the way home.
The rubber match between Drake and Valpo will take place tomorrow afternoon with first pitch from Buel Field scheduled for 2:00 p.m.
