The Lake Forest College softball team defeated Hood College 7-2 and Gordon College 8-0 on Wednesday. Forester junior pitcher Jessi Werner allowed just one hit and struck out 14 batters in nine scoreless innings on the day.
Werner came on in releif in the victory over Hood and retired all six batters she faced, including three by strikeout. Sophomore Jenny McTague struck out four without a walk in the first five innings and improved to 2-0 on the season and 15-2 in her career.
After the Blazers took the early lead with a run in the top of the second inning, Lake Forest responded with five tallies in the bottom of the frame. Junior second baseman Vasi Panos drove in the first run on a triple and scored on a base hit by freshman shortstop Kat Beall. Senior centerfielder Whitney Leiderman added a sacrifice fly and another run came home on a single by senior rightfielder Kayla Borgra. The fifth and final run of the inning scored when junior first baseman Sally Snarski, who reached on an error to begin the rally, drew a bases-loaded walk.
The score remained 5-1 until Hood plated a run in the top of the fifth. The Foresters responded once again, scoring twice in the bottom of the inning on back-to-back-to-back doubles by Panos, freshman designated player Jillian Rashid, and Beall.
Eighteen different Foresters appeared in the victory over Gordon and eight scored a run. Freshman second baseman Alex Milat had two of the team's six base hits in the contest and the team drew seven bases on balls.
Junior designated player Alex Hemmer drew a walk, stole second, and scored on a Snarski single in the top of the first inning. Senior shortstop came home on a wild pitch with two outs in the second inning and a two-out error in the third brought in Rashid, making the score 3-0. Two walks and a hit by pitch loaded the bases with Foresters with two outs in the sixth. One run scored on a passed ball and two more came home on an error, increasing the Lake Forest lead to 6-0. Freshman centerfielder Sydney Gardner singled in a run in the seventh and later scored on a sacrifice fly by classmate McKenzie Mac.
Werner was dominating from the start, retiring the first six batters she faced, the last five by strikeout. The only hit she allowed in the contest was a leadoff single in the sixth inning. She finished the game with 11 strikeouts, one shy of her career-high, and moved into third place in program history with 251 strikeouts in her career. She is 2-0 with a 1.31 earned run average and 23 strikeouts in 16 innings so far this year.
Lake Forest is 4-0 for the first time since 2002 while Hood fell to 1-2 and Gordon to 0-3 on the year.
After taking Wednesday off, the Foresters will take on Fontbonne University Thursday afternoon at 1:00 (EST) and Millikin University at 3:00. Both games will be played at Hancock Park in Clermont, Florida.
