BLUFFTON, Ohio - The Bluffton University softball team worked around a pair of long delays but earned a split with Hanover College on Saturday, May 4, 2024. The Beavers finished off their season with a 9-31 record overall and 3-15 Heartland Conference mark thanks to three wins in their final four games.
Bluffton took a 2-0 lead in the home first during game one thanks to a pair of unearned runs. Elizabeth Crites (Findlay) and Kryshel Dales (Defiance/Ayersville) both singled, while Crites and Emily Hope (Enon/Greenon) crossed the dish.
It was 6-2 when freshman Taryn Hampton (Fostoria/Hopewell Louden) plated Dales with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fourth. Julia Tegeder (Hamilton) singled home pinch runner Ella McCombs (Springfield/Southeastern) two innings later and pinch hitter Halee McDade (Oxford, Ohio/Talawanda) followed with a two-run single down the right field line, but four Panther runs in the fifth and three in the seventh added up to a 13-6 Hanover victory in the lidlifter.
Dales and Tegeder smacked two hits apiece, while McDade drove in two runs. Junior Hayley Lewis (Kettering/Fairmont) fell to 2-12 after allowing 10 runs on eight hits in 4.0 innings of work. She struck out one and walked six.
Hampton picked up Tegeder with a single to center in the second inning of game two and then the Beavers got it rolling with four more in the third frame. Lewis drove in Mia McCartney (North Baltimore) and Riley Hammonds (Russia) delivered with a two run-double to left that scored Crites and Lewis. Hammonds trotted home with the fourth run when Hanover misfired on Tegeder's steal of second.
The Panthers trimmed it to 5-3 in the fourth inning, however, Bluffton tallies in the fifth and sixth pushed the lead to 7-3. Hampton doubled home Hammonds who led off the fifth with a two-bagger and McCartney scored in the sixth thanks to Crites double to left center. The Panthers scored in the seventh and had the game-tying run at the plate when senior Katie Fleshman (Delaware/Rutherford B. Hayes) finished what she started with a lineout to right, ending her career with victory number four of the season.
Fleshman improved to 4-14 after limiting Hanover to four runs on eight hits with two walks and two strikeouts.
Hampton was 3-of-3 with two RBI as she finished the day 4-for-5! Hammonds went 2-of-4 with two RBI. Lewis added two safeties and McCartney scored twice.
The 2024 softball season is a wrap. Continue checking the softball pages on the website as records are updated and All-Heartland Conference awards are distributed in the upcoming weeks.
-BEAVERS-
