MANKATO, Minn. – Lewis' softball team opened its 2020 season with a pair of victories at the Minnesota State Dome Tournament in Mankato, Minn., on Saturday. The Flyers defeated Northwest Missouri State 4-3 in the season opener and then rallied from a 5-0 defeat to defeat Concordia-St. Paul 9-7 in eight innings in the second game.
Game 1 – Lewis 4 Northwest Missouri 3
Lewis (2-0) struck first with single runs in the first two innings.
Morgan Weber (Sugar Grove, Ill./Kaneland) drove in the first run of the season with a two-out single up the middle to bring in
Jessica Lofthouse (Oswego, Ill./Oswego).
Sara Serena (Kankakee, Ill./Kankakee) led off the second inning with a double, went to third on a flyout to center and scored on
Amy Bukovsky's (Aurora, Ill./Montini Catholic) grounder to second.
The Bearcats (2-1) tied the game in the bottom of the third on back-to-back home runs from Sydne Brashear and Kaitlyn Weiss.
The Flyers retook the lead in the sixth on Serena's two-run homer to center with one out in the inning.
NWMSU cut the lead to 4-3 in its final at-bat as Olivia Daugherty drove in Grace Jeffries with a sacrifice fly to center.
Katie David (Mapleton, Ill./Illini Bluffs) was able to preserve the victory as she got Brashear to ground out to second to end the game.
Lewis outhit the Bearcats 8-7 in the contest and were led by David, Weber and Serena with two each. David threw a complete game in the circle allowing three runs on seven hits with seven strikeouts.
Game 2 – Lewis 9 Concordia-St. Paul 7 8 innings
The Flyers fell behind 5-0 after an inning and a half but began to chip away at the Golden Bear (1-2). Lewis scored twice in the third on an RBI singles from
Elexis Swartzentruber (Normal, Ill./Normal Community) and Weber.
CSP got those runs back in the fourth scoring two unearned runs.
The Flyers came right back in in its half of the fourth on Swartzentruber's two-run single scoring
Cierra Taylor (Tinley Park, Ill./Andrew) and
Olivia Magaldi (Mishawka, Ind./Penn).
Lewis added two more in the fifth on an RBI single from Magaldi and a groundout from Taylor which scored
Kristin Kavalauskas (Oak Forest, Ill./Tinley Park) to make it a one-run game.
The Flyers tied the game in the sixth on Serena's single down the right field line driving in David. Lewis had a chance to take the lead but back-to-back strikeouts ended the threat.
The Flyers had a chance to win the game in the seventh but a strikeout ended that threat as well.
The Golden Bears had a chance to break the tie in eighth putting runners at second and third with one out but David got out of the jam getting a flyout to left and a groundout back to the circle to end the inning.
Lewis won the game in the bottom half on Magaldi's two-run walk-off homer to left field which scored Serena.
CSP outhit the Flyers 16-14 in the game. Swartzentruber and Serena had three hits apiece while Magaldi added two hits. David went the final two innings allowing no runs on two hits with a strikeout to pick up her second win of the season.
Lewis wraps up its trip to Minnesota on Sunday taking on Emporia State (Kan.) at 9 a.m. and then will face Minnesota State at 1:15 p.m.
