MARIETTA, Ohio — The Marietta College softball team split a pair of games Sunday (Mar. 17) afternoon to close out the BSN Sports Classic. The Pioneers defeated Alma College, 7-6, but was defeated by Wittenberg University, 13-6, in the finale. Marietta moves to 6-7 on the season.
The Pioneers got four good innings from starter
Breanna Zirkle (Pomeroy, Ohio/Meigs) (3-1) against the Scots, earning the victory. Zirkle allowed four runs, three earned, on two hits. She walked one and struck out two.
Amelia Timko (Brunswick, Ohio/Brunswick) worked the final three to earn her second save of the season, giving up two earned runs on three hits. She struck out three and walked a batter.
The Pioneers got to work quickly in the first inning as
Liz White (North Royalton, Ohio/North Royalton) walked and Grace Elliot reached base on an infield hit.
Rachel Kazmirski (Colliers, W.Va./Brooke) then gave Marietta the first runs of the contest with a deep blast over the right-center field fence, putting the score at 3-0. Marietta scored three more runs in the bottom of the third inning.
Leah Weber (Bakersfield, Calif./Garces Memorial) hit an RBI triple and the scored on
Camryn Campbell's (Ontario, Ohio/Lexington) single. White then doubled Campbell home and the Pioneers led 6-1 after three innings.
The Scots scored three runs in the top of the fourth with the help of a couple Marietta errors, but
Jordan Cholley's (North Canton, Ohio/Glenoak) RBI single in the bottom of the fourth gave Marietta an important insurance run.
The Scots crept closer in the top of the sixth as Jaycie Lavalley drove in a couple of runs to cut the lead to one, but Timko got out of trouble as she got Mckenna Salley to pop out and struck out Jenna Holzinger to end the inning. Alma had two runners in scoring position in the top of the seventh with only one out, but ran out of luck when Danielle Dumoulin ripped a line drive to third base.
Jess Brown (Brookville, Ohio/Brookville) made the catch and was able to tag the bag before Amelia Price could get back for the game-ending double play.
Jillian Middleton (Marietta, Ohio/Marietta) and Elliot both finished 3-for-4 with a double.
In the afternoon finale, Marietta gave up 11 runs in the final three innings and dropped a contest to Wittenberg (10-10 overall) by the score of 13-6.
Brown led off the second with a base hit and Middleton followed with a double to give the Pioneers two runners in scoring position and no outs. Tiger starter Kira van Ravensberg (4-4) got
Taylor Airy (Dublin, Ohio/Dublin Coffman) to pop out and Cholley to ground out, getting out of trouble and only giving up one run. In the third inning, Middleton got an RBI single and Airy was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to give Maritta a 3-1 lead.
The Pioneers got three runs in the fourth inning after White nailed an RBI triple and came home on a single from Kazmirski. Middleton followed with another hit, bringing home another run and putting the score at 6-2
The Tigers put together a 5-run fifth inning as they sent 10 hitters to the plate, with eight of the first nine reaching base safely. Kayla Drake's sacrifice fly put Wittenberg into the lead, 7-6.
Marietta tried to get something going in the bottom of the sixth as Kazmirski and Brown both singled with only one out. Middleton then followed with a shot to the right-center field gap, but both Marietta pinch runners got tagged out in rundowns to effectively end the inning. The Tigers tacked on four runs in the seventh and Marietta could not make up the difference.
Amelia Timko (Brunswick, Ohio/Brunswick) (0-1) got the start and was tagged with the loss. She threw 4.1 innings and allowed seven runs on seven hits with one walk and one strikeout. Middleton worked 1.1 innings and gave up two runs on four hits. Candance Walters also worked 1.1 innings and gave four runs on four hits.
van Ravensberg started and got the win for the Tigers. She was charged with six runs on 12 hits in 5.1 innings of work. Lilly James got out of that trouble in the sixth and closed out the seventh to close out the Tiger victory.
Middleton went 4-for-4 and Brown collected three hits in the contest. White, Kazmirski, and Campbell all collected two hits apiece for the Pioneers.
Marietta next plays Penn State Behrend in a doubleheader on Sunday (Mar 24) with first pitch scheduled for 12:00 p.m.
Fans can follow the Pioneers all season long at
pioneers.marietta.edu. You can also follow the Pioneers on Facebook at
facebook.com/MariettaCollege and @MariettaPioneer on X and Instagram.
