The Lake Forest College softball team was defeated 6-0 and 4-0 by visiting University of Wisconsin-Whitewater on Tuesday. Whitewater entered the contest ranked 13th in the country by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association.
Both games were more competitive than their scores might indicate. The opener was scoreless until the visitors scored on a throwing error in the top of the fourth inning. Whitewater added a run in the fifth but Forester junior pitcher Jessi Werner was able to escape with no further damage, leaving the bases loaded. The Warhawks, however, used four extra base hits to break the game open with four runs in the top of the seventh.
Werner added six more strikeouts to her season total and her 149 punchouts on the year trail the team record set by nancy Findeisen in 2002 by just seven.
Junior catcher Alex Hemmer had two of the Foresters' four base hits in the contest.
Whitewater took the lead early in game two, plating a pair of runs in the top of the first inning. The Warhawks tacked on two more in the sixth.
Lake Forest actually put more runners on base in the game than their guests but left nine runners on base in the first six innings.
Forester sophomore pitcher Jenny McTague retired 11 batters in a row at one point and struck out five batters without a walk in the contest.
Junior first baseman Sally Snarski had two singles in the game and senior centerfielder Whitney Leiderman's leadoff double in the first inning was the only extra base hit of the contest.
The losses dropped Lake Forest's record to 28-8 while Whitewater improved to 32-6.
The Foresters will be the Midwest Conference South Division's top seed in this weekend's four-team MWC Tournament at Lawrence University. Lake Forest will take on Carroll University Friday morning at 10:00 in the first game of the double-elimination event and play again in the afternoon at either 2:00 (round one losers) or 4:00 (round one winners). Play will continue on Saturday when the two 1-1 teams from Friday square off at 10:00 a.m. with the winner needing to defeat Friday's undefeated squad at noon and 2:00 p.m. to claim the league title.
