The Lake Forest College softball team remained undefeated in Midwest Conference play by defeating visiting Knox College 13-0 in five innings and 9-1 in six on Saturday. Senior shortstop Sam Ritsema had five base hits, including three doubles, in the Foresters' first two home games of the year.
Ritsema was 2-for-3 and scored a pair of runs in the opener. She doubled and scored one of the home team's six first-inning runs on a single by freshman leftfielder Tara Airola. Freshman pitcher Jenny McTague and sophomore second baseman Vasi Panos also had run-scoring hits in the inning.
Lake Forest added seven runs in the bottom of the second. McTague doubled in the first two and Panos followed with an RBI single. Sophomore Kaleigh Ambrose hit a sacrifice fly to score the fourth run of the frame and advanced all the way to second when the ball was dropped. Panos scored on a base hit by sophomore centerfielder Whitney Leiderman and junior rightfielder Kayla Borgra plated Ambrose and Leiderman on her seventh double of the season.
McTague allowed just one base hit while striking out four batters in three innings of work to earn the victory. She is now 5-1 with a 1.49 earned run average this year. Ambrose added a strikeout in two hitless innings of relief.
Sophomore Jessi Werner followed up a solid pitching performance in the opener with one of her own in game two. She matched her career-high with 10 strikeouts without issuing a base on balls and allowed just one run on five base hits. She improved to 7-3 with a 1.85 ERA and climbed into fourth place in program history with 151 strikeouts in her career.
Borgra singled in Leiderman with the first run of the game in the bottom of the opening inning and later scored on a groundout by Airola.
Borgra led off the third inning with a base hit and came home on a double by Ritsema. Freshman first baseman Sally Snarski singled in Ritsema and came home on Airola's second home run of the season, giving the Foresters a 6-0 lead.
Ritsema singled in Leiderman in the fourth inning and drove in sophomore catcher Maddie Dieleman and Leiderman on a double over the leftfielder's head to end the game in the sixth. Ritsema was 3-for-4 and tied her career-high with four RBI in the game.
Lake Forest is now 12-4 overall this season and 6-0 in MWC play. Knox fell to 1-17 overall and 0-2 in the league.
The Foresters will host Robert Morris University in a non-conference doubleheader Sunday at 1:00 p.m.
