CROWN POINT, Ind. --- Roosevelt University continued to be the thorn in the University of St. Francis softball season after the Lakers upset the top-seeded Fighting Saints 7-0 in second-round action of the 2023 Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference Tournament on Thursday. The loss snapped a season-high 15-game winning streak for USF, which defeated Indiana University South Bend earlier in the day by an 11-7 count.
Roosevelt (23-15) has been the only CCAC team to have solved head coach
Amanda Jensen's team this spring, beating them in all three matchups and allowing the Saints (32-8) to score just one run in the combined three games. The Lakers are also one of only two teams to have blanked St. Francis this season having done so twice now.
Thursday's opener was a completely different story with the Saints scoring in all but one inning and totaling 11 hits.
Brittany Osborne,
Rose Mwaro and
Madisen Tucker provided nine of USF's 15 hits in the doubleheader with three each.
Game 1: USF 11, Indiana South Bend 7
The Saints looked to cruise to their 15th straight win in the opener by scoring five times in the second inning. Indiana South Bend (15-29), however, made things interesting when it put up a four-spot in the fourth inning to pull within 6-5.
USF was not done with its run production, though, scoring two more times each in the fourth and fifth innings and once in the sixth to pull away.
Osborne, Mwaro,
Kaylie Sippel and
Madisen Tucker all collected a pair of hits in the opener, while
Gracyn Gabriel drove in a pair of runs.
Hannah Vachon (15-2) was the benefactor on the mound.
Game 2: Roosevelt 7, USF 0
An error to lead off the fourth inning by the Saints wound up opening the floodgates for Roosevelt. The fourth-seeded Lakers would take full advantage by scoring all seven of their runs in in the inning, including four on a grand slam, with all seven runs being unearned.
St. Francis never seriously threatened after leaving the bases full in the opening inning. The Saints did put runners in scoring position in both the fourth and sixth innings, but both came with two outs and USF could not push a run across the plate.
Osborne, Mwaro,
Danielle Callahan and Tucker accounted for USF's four hits.
Notes: In its last 26 games, USF's only three setbacks have been to Roosevelt … Osborne extended her streak of reaching base safely to 17 games with her base hit to open the second game … With at least one hit in each of the two games on Thursday, Mwaro now has a season-high nine-game hitting streak for the Saints … With the second-game loss, USF will now have to battle through the elimination bracket in its bid to sweep both the conference regular-season and tournament titles. That march restarts at noon on Friday against Trinity Christian College.
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