WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – West Liberty and Frostburg State split a Mountain East Conference doubleheader here Friday afternoon at the WLU Softball Complex.
Coach
Herb Minch's Hilltoppers (9-9, 5-5) breezed to a 5-0 win in the first game only to see the Bobcats (9-4, 7-1) escape with a narrow 1-0 decision in the nightcap.
In the opener,
Annie Paterson and
Makenzie Amend teamed up on a dominant one-hit shutout for the hosts.
Paterson hurled the first five innings to get the win, striking out 10 batters without a walk and yielding only a harmless single to lead off the fifth. Amend came in to get the last six outs, recording five of them via the strikeout route.
Kat Donzella led the Black and Gold at the plate with a triple, two singles and a pair of RBIs. Paterson helped her own cause by singling twice and chasing home two more runs.
The second game was an old-fashioned pitchers' duel between WLU's
Riley Bennington and Frostburg's Shawna Leonard with each righthander carrying a shutout into the seventh inning.
The Bobcats had managed only one infield single off Bennington and hadn't had a runner past first base until Aliyah Ramey hammered a one-out drive over the fence in left-center for a 1-0 Frostburg lead in the top of the seventh.
Leonard, who had limited the Hilltoppers to a pair of isolated singles through the first six frames, retired the side in order in the bottom of the seventh to complete the shutout.
West Liberty heads to Wheeling on Wednesday for a 3 p.m. doubleheader against the Cardinals.
SOFTBALL
West Liberty 5, Frostburg State 0
Frostburg State 000 000 0 – 0 1 2
West Liberty 220 100 x – 5 7 2
FSU: Theobald lp (2SO, 1W), Talbert (3) (2SO, 0W) and Ernst. Ramey S
WLU: Paterson wp (10SO, 0W), Amend (6) (5SO, 0W) and Donzella. Donzella T, 2S, 2rbi; Paterson 2S, 2rbi; Saunders D
Frostburg State 1, West Liberty 0
Frostburg State 000 000 1 – 1 3 2
West Liberty 000 000 0 – 0 2 1
FSU: Leonard lp (5SO, 0W) and Ernst. Ramey HR, rbi
WLU: Bennington lp (8SO, 0W), Paterson (7) (1SO, 1W) and Donzella. Scott S; Beeman S
