The Lake Forest College softball team prevailed 14-0 and 25-3 at Knox College on Saturday. Forester junior Jessi Werner pitched a no-hitter in game one and freshman McKenzie Mac tied one school record with three home runs and set another with 11 RBI in game two.
It was the second career no-hitter for Werner, who struck out a career-high 13 of the 18 batters she faced in the five-inning contest. Werner matched the third-highest single-game strikeout total in program history and became the first player in team annals with 300 career strikeouts. She also improved to 9-1 with a 1.83 earned run average on the year.
Lake Forest senior rightfielder Kayla Borgra recorded her first career four-hit game and also scored and drove in four runs apiece. Senior centerfielder Whitney Leiderman was 3-for-4 and scored three times. Both players came home on a double by junior catcher Alex Hemmer in the opening inning.
Leiderman singled in the first of six runs in the Forester second. Borgra and junior first baseman Sally Snarski each had two-run doubles and junior second baseman Vasi Panos also doubled in a run in the inning.
After a scoreless third, Borgra scored the visitors' only run of the fourth inning on a base hit by Snarski.
A Leiderman base hit also drove in the first of five runs in the fifth. Borgra singled in two more runs and scored on a base hit by Hemmer, who came home on a double by junior third baseman Kaleigh Ambrose. Lake Forest came up one short of the team record with six doubles in the contest.
After recording a season-high 16 base hits in the opener, Lake Forest had 17 in game two. Leiderman led off the contest with a triple and scored on a double by Borgra. Ambrose hit her fourth homer of the season and junior pitcher Jenny McTague cleared the fence for the first time in 2015 later in the four-run frame.
After back-to-back homers by the Prairie Fire plated all three of their runs in the bottom of the first, the Foresters scored six times in the top of the second. Freshman leftfielder Sydney Gardner led off with a single, stole second, went to third on an error by the catcher, and scored on a wild pitch. Lake Forest took advantage of two more Knox errors in the rally, which was capped off by a three-run homer by Mac, who entered the game with one base hit in two at-bats on the year.
The Foresters set a school record with 15 runs in the top of the third. Mac accounted for eight of them on a pair of grand slams. She became just the third player in team history to homer three times in a game and also the third with two round-trippers in a single inning. No other Forester has ever belted two grand slams in a contest. Three runs scored in between the two grand slams on the first career home run by freshman first baseman Megan Dahlinger.
Dahlinger had four runs batted in and Ambrose three in the game. McTague scored a career-high four runs and eight of her teammates crossed home plate at least twice.
Lake Forest belted six home runs, two shy of the team record and the second-highest single-game total in school history.
After surrendering three runs in the first inning, McTague retired the last seven batters she faced to earn the victory and improve to 8-2 on the year. Ambrose made her season debut in the circle and allowed just one base hit while striking out four batters in the final two frames.
The Foresters are now 17-3 overall this season and 4-0 in Midwest Conference play. Knox remained winless in 14 games, including four league contests.
Lake Forest will host Carthage College in a non-conference doubleheader Monday afternoon at 3:00.
