Softball | 4/17/2014 8:50:00 PM

Box Score 1 | Box Score 2    WISE, Va. – The West Liberty University softball team dropped both ends of a Mountain East Conference doubleheader at MEC-leading UVA-Wise on Thursday, falling by scores of 9-1 and 2-0.
   The host Cavaliers (28-11, 15-3) jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning of the opener and kept right on rolling, closing out the game in five innings with three runs in the fourth frame and two more in the fifth to invoke the 8-run mercy rule.
   The Hilltoppers (8-33, 1-19) combined two of their four hits – singles by Emily Harvey and Kalyn Hanby – with a throwing error to avoid the shutout with an unearned run in the top of the third.
   The second game was a classic pitcher's duel between WLU's Nicki Mihalik and Wise's Taylor Brandts.
   The Cavaliers scored twice in the bottom of the first when Christina Ziemba cranked out an RBI double and scored on a wild pitch. Mihalik blanked the hosts on just two singles the rest of the way but the Hilltoppers couldn't solve Brandts.
   Allyson Johnson's fourth-inning double was one of only three balls hit out of the infield by WLU as the UVA-Wise ace posted 12 strikeouts without issuing a walk in a 3-hit gem.
   West Liberty continues its southern swing on Friday with a 2 p.m. doubleheader at Concord.
 
SOFTBALL
UVA-Wise 9, West Liberty 1
West Liberty               001 00 – 1    4  0
UVA-Wise                  400 32 – 9  12  2
    WLU: Young lp (2SO, 4W), Creamer (5) (0SO, 3W) and Burke.
    UVW: Hawks wp (3SO, 0W) and Lawson. Lawson 3S, 2rbi; Ziemba HR T, 2rbi; Wiltshire 2S; Dillon HR, 2rbi
 
UVA-Wise 2, West Liberty 0
West Liberty            000 000 0 – 0  3  1
UVA-Wise               200 000 x – 2  3  1
    WLU: Mihalik lp (2SO, 4W) and Mogielski. Johnson D
    UVW: Brandts wp (12SO, 0W) and Fischer. Ziemba D, rbi