Softball swept by No. 23 Ottawa

3/23/2024 | Softball | Box Score 1 | Box Score 2
Kansas Wesleyan dropped both ends of Saturday’s doubleheader with the No. 23 ranked Ottawa University Braves at Salina South High School. Ottawa won the first 4-3, and the second 9-0.

Ottawa took a 1-0 lead in the first inning of the first game but the Coyotes came back to take a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the third inning.

Cristabelle Alvarado reached on an error to start the inning and pinch runner Lisandra Andrade would score on another error when Ottawa’s catcher dropped the ball after a passed ball and throw to second. Sydnee Fordham drove in the second run with a double.

Ottawa tied it in the top of the fourth, but KWU took the lead back in the fifth. Jocelyn Alcala led off the inning with a single and then scored on Alvarado’s single.

The Braves took advantage of a pair of KWU errors in the fifth to take a 4-3 lead and that’s where the score stayed.

Viviana Alaniz led off the bottom of the seventh with a walk and got to third on Eliza Flores’s single, but the Coyotes could not push the game-tying run across.

KWU had four different players with a hit in the game. Caitlyn Collier went the distance in the circle allowing four runs, three earned on seven hits.

In the second game, Ottawa scored five runs in the top of the first inning, and then added two more in the fifth and two more in the seventh.

Fordham broke up the no-hit bid for the Braves in the third with a double, but was called out for being off the base to end the inning.

Three different players had a hit for the Coyotes. Jewell Henry went six innings allowing nine runs, six earned on 11 hits. Halley Asbury closed out the game allowing two hits, but striking out three in one inning.

KWU hits the road twice next week, at Bethel on Tuesday, and at Saint Mary next Saturday.