The Lake Forest College softball team swept visiting Monmouth College 9-3 and 5-1 on Saturday to clinch a spot in the 2015 Midwest Conference Championship Tournament. Forester junior Jessi Werner and sophomore Jenny McTague combined to strike out 17 batters and allow just nine base hits on the day.
Werner finished with nine strikeouts against three walks in the opener. The complete game victory raised her record on the season to 14-1, matching the third-highest single-season win total in team history, which recorded a year ago.
The game was scoreless until the Foresters broke through for eight runs in the bottom of the third. Freshman leftfielder Sydney Gardner led off the rally with the first of her two singles in the inning. Senior centerfielder Whitney Leiderman followed with her third home run of the season and the 18th round-tripper of her career. The next four Foresters also reached base safely and two scored on junior third baseman Kaleigh Ambrose's single. After the first out of the inning, another base hit loaded the bases and freshman designated player Jillian Rashid doubled in two more runs, making the score 6-0. Run-scoring singles by Gardner and Leiderman finished off the rally.
After the Fighting Scots scored twice on a home run in the top of the fourth, Lake Forest plated one in the bottom of the inning on some alert baserunning by Hemmer on an infield fly rule pop-up.
Monmouth added one more run in the top of the sixth inning to close out the scoring.
Gardner, Leiderman, Hemmer, Ambrose, senior first baseman Sally Snarski, and junior second baseman Vasi Panos each had two of the home team's 14 hits in the contest.
Leiderman reached base to lead off off the bottom of the first against Monmouth and eventually came home on a groundout by Snarski, giving the Foresters the early lead.
The margin grew to four after the home team plated three in the second. McTague led off the inning with a triple off the rightfielder's outstretched glove and Panos drew a walk to put runners on the corners with no outs. Junior catchers Maddie Dieleman doubled in the Foresters' first run of the inning and, two batters later, Leiderman singled in two more, making the score 4-0.
Monmouth had two of its three base hits and scored its only run of the contest in the top of the fourth.
Ambrose came home with the game's final run on a wild pitch in the bottom of the fifth.
McTague held the visitors hitless for the final three innings and improved to 10-4 with a 1.84 earned run average on the season. She struck out eight batters while allowing just one walk and three hits in the contest.
Lake Forest is now 24-5 overall and the Foresters' 10-1 record in league play assures them a spot in the MWC Championship Tourmament May 1-2. Monmouth fell to 10-20 overall and 4-9 in the league.
The victory was also the 300th for Lake Forest's Joe Kinsella, who is in his 16th year as a collegiate head coach. He is 182-131-1 in his ninth year at the College and 300-263-1 overall.
The Foresters will play a non-conference game against Robert Morris University at home on Sunday. The game, which was originally scheduled for 1:00 p.m., will now begin at 11:00 a.m. due to the weather forecast.
