BETHANY, W.Va. – The Bethany College softball team held a 3-0 lead in game one, but fell victim to a late rally in falling 5-4 in eight innings to Case Western Reserve, who made it a sweep of the non-conference twinbill Sunday at Bethany with a 5-0 triumph in the nightcap.
Prior to the opener, Bethany (17-13) honored its five seniors on this year’s team in 2B Chelsea Butler (Cortland, Ohio/Lakeview), OF Allie Fluharty (Follansbee, W.Va./Brooke), OF Cortney Lax (Orrville, Ohio), pitcher Cortney Newland (Carmichaels, Pa.) and 3B Andrea Thomas (Toronto, Ohio). A couple of seniors had a hand in BC’s three-run third inning, as Thomas ripped an RBI double to score Butler and then a single back up the middle from sophomore 1B Angie Varhula (West Mifflin, Pa.) plated a pair for a 3-0 Bethany lead.
Newland cruised through the first four innings, allowing just two hits. Case Western (18-22) mounted a threat in the fifth by loading the bases, but Newland escaped with a grounder back to her. The Spartans finally reached the Bison pitcher in the sixth with three runs on four hits to even the score and the game would carry into extra innings.
The international tiebreaker began in the eighth frame with a runner bring placed on second to start the inning. A walk put runners on first and second with two outs and then a pair of singles gave the visitors a 5-3 advantage. Bethany moved within a run in the last of the eighth when Lax scored on a two-out double from freshman catcher Laura Biroschak (Canfield, Ohio/South Range). The rally would fall a run short, as a ground out gave game one to the Spartans.
Bethany out-hit Case by a 10-9 margin, led by Thomas, who was 2-for-4 with an RBI, and sophomore RF Maria Vallone (Rochester, N.Y./Webster Schroeder), who was 2-for-3 with a run scored. Newland went the distance in taking the close loss. She fell to 7-6 this year after allowing five runs, four earned, on nine hits with one strikeout and two walks.
In game two, the teams combined for just two hits, both by BC, through the first three innings. The Spartans managed their first hit off Bison sophomore starter Emily Jump (Milford, Del./Polytech) with a leadoff single in the fourth and that was followed by a two-run homer to left by Lauren Wolz that cut through the strong wind that howled through the field all day. Case doubled its lead in the fifth with a pair of two-out RBI singles to swell their cushion to 4-0.
The Bison bats were held in check in the nightcap by Spartan hurler Katherine Seo, who allowed only four singles all day. Bethany’s best chance came in the fifth with singles from Vallone and Varhula put two on with two outs, but a fly out ended the threat. Case tacked on an unearned run in the sixth frame and Bethany did not get a runner on in either of the last two innings in falling 5-0.
After throwing five innings and allowing four runs on four hits, Jump suffered the loss in the circle to drop to 10-6 this season.
The games marked the Bison’s final non-conference tilts this year, as they close the regular season with five PAC doubleheaders. The first comes Tuesday when Bethany hosts Chatham at 3:30 p.m.
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