PLATTEVILLE, Wis. – The UW-Stevens Point softball team split a Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) doubleheader at UW-Platteville, falling 5-4 in game one before winning game two 7-4, on Sunday afternoon in its final games of the season.
UW-Platteville 5, UW-Stevens Point 4 | Box UW-Stevens Point (15-24, 5-11 WIAC) led 4-2 heading to the bottom of the seventh but UW-Platteville (12-28, 3-13 WIAC) scored three runs, including a two-run walk-off home run by Haley Salazar.
Trailing by two in the bottom of the seventh, the Pioneers cut the Pointers' lead in half when Lisa Karau singled in Katie Huss, who started the inning with a double, with one out. After a fielder's choice erased Karau, Salazar ended the game with her second home run of the season.
After UW-Platteville scored a run in the first to take an early 1-0 lead, UW-Stevens Point took its first lead of the game with a two-run top of the fourth.
Samantha Olson (New Lisbon, WI/New Lisbon) and
Maddie Sawdey (Medford, WI/Medford) each drove in runs with two-out singles, as the Pointers tallied four hits in the inning.
The Pioneers tied the game at 2-2 on an unearned run in the bottom of the fourth but the Pointers quickly reclaimed the lead on a sacrifice fly by
Jordon Schreiner (Kaukauna, WI/Kaukauna) in the fifth. A run-scoring single by
Sam Raddant (Shawano, WI/Shawano) in the top of the seventh gave UW-Stevens Point a 4-2 lead entering the final half inning.
Schreiner was 3-for-3 with a run and an RBI and was the lone UWSP player with multiple hits in the game. Karau was 3-for-4 with a run and an RBI for UW-Platteville. Jess Butzen went the distance on the mound for the Pioneers to earn her fifth win of the season.
UW-Stevens Point 7, UW-Platteville 4 | Box UW-Stevens Point scored multiple runs in three of the first four innings and held UW-Platteville scoreless in the final five innings to come away with a 7-4 win in its final game of the season.
The Pointers got out to an early 2-0 advantage on two-out RBI hits by
Paige Allen (South Elgin, IL/South Elgin) and Olson. However, the Pioneers came back with three in the bottom of the inning with two runs scoring on Carley Rote's two-run single.
UW-Platteville added a run in the second to lead 4-2 but UW-Stevens Point scored five runs in the third and fourth innings and
Sydney Gorges (Hortonville, WI/Hortonville) held the Pioneers scoreless the rest of the way. Gorges tossed her ninth complete game of the season, allowing four runs, three earned, on 11 hits.
The Pointers capitalized on two errors in the third, scoring two unearned runs, while Olson had her second RBI double of the game. A third error led to one of UWSP's two fourth-inning runs and another scored on a grounder off the bat of Schreiner.
Olson, Allen and
Bailie Sheahan (Salem, WI/Wilmot Union) each had two hits for UW-Stevens Point and Sheahan and Allen each scored twice. Salazar had three hits for UW-Platteville.
UW-Stevens Point fell just short of a berth in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Championship, finishing with a 5-11 conference record. UW-Stout currently sits sixth at 5-9 and holds the tiebreaker over the Pointers by virtue of a sweep on April 18.
The doubleheader was the final games in the careers of Raddant, Sawdey, Schreiner and
Brittany Sass (Appleton, WI/East). The senior class recorded 59 wins in their four seasons at UW-Stevens Point.
