The Lake Forest College softball team split a doubleheader at Cornell College on Sunday, falling 3-2 in the opener before winning game two 7-1. The Foresters also clinched first place in the Midwest Conference South Division standings for the ninth time in the last 10 years. Freshman shortstop Kat Beall led the visitors with four base hits on the day.
Beall raised her batting average on the season to .423, the highest mark of any Forester starter. She had one of the team's five hits in the opener on Sunday and three of the other four occurred in the first inning. Senior centerfielder Whitney Leiderman led off the game with a walk and advanced to second on a single by senior rightfielder Kayla Borgra. Both runners advanced on a sacrifice bunt and scored on a single by junior first baseman Sally Snarski.
Unfortunately for the Foresters, those would be their only runs of the game. Cornell scored a run in the bottom of the second, tied the contest in the sixth, and scored the game-winner with two outs in the seventh.
Lake Forest junior pitcher Jessi Werner struck out seven batters in the game and now has 143 strikeouts on the season, surpassing her previous career-high of 138 from last year. She needs just 13 more to match Nancy Findeisen's program record of 156, set in 2002.
Sophomore Janny McTague pitched game two for the visitors and, for the second straight start did not allow a run until the seventh inning. She recorded seven strikeouts while allowing just four base hits and a walk in the game. McTague is now 12-4 with a 1.64 earned run average on the year.
The Foresters scored at least once in each of the last five innings, beinning in the third. Beall singled to lead off the inning, advanced to second on a wild pitch, went to third on a base hit by freshman leftfielder Sydney Gardner, and scored on a bunt by Leiderman.
Beall doubled Lake Forest's lead on a run-scoring single in the fourth.
Consecutive base hits by Borgra, Hemmer, and Snarski loaded the bases with no outs in the fifth and a double down the left field line by junior third baseman Kaleigh Ambrose brought home a pair of runs. Two batters later, an infield single by junior second baseman Vasi Panos and a throwing error by the Cornell shortstop scored Ambrose, making the score 5-0.
A sacrifice fly off the bat of Leiderman in the sixth and an RBI-double by Beall in the seventh extended the lead to seven runs and a homer by the home team in the bottom of the seventh closed out the scoring.
Lake Forest is now 28-6 overall this season and 13-2 in MWC play. Cornell completed the regular season 30-6 overall and 12-3 in the league. Both teams will represent the South Division in next weekend's MWC Championship Tournament at Lawrence University.
The Foresters will finish their regular season with a doubleheader against the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Tuesday at 3:00 p.m.
