Two back-to-back home runs in the top of the sixth inning locked in Ball State’s victory in the first game of the Toledo double header Saturday afternoon.
“We hit well all weekend,” coach Craig Nicholson said.
Despite a strong wind blowing inward on the field during Friday's competition against Bowling Green, an outward wind on Saturday worked to Ball State’s advantage on offense.
As junior left fielder Jennifer Gilbert stepped to the plate as the third batter in the lineup, she homered over left field recording her first of four home runs to be hit over the course of the day.
“Part of it is she’s a great hitter,” Nicholson said. “Part of it is if people want to challenge her she’s going to make them pay.”
Junior first baseman Taylor Rager answered Gilbert’s homer with a bomb over right field.
The Cardinals strong offensive weekend recorded 18 hits and 14 runs in the first game followed by nine hits and 10 runs in the second.
Freshman Nicole Steinbach improved her overall season record to 7-7, allowing eight runs, five hits and completing five strikeouts.
Freshman Kelsey Schifferdecker threw the first four innings of the second game before redshirt junior Audra Sanders came in as relief.
Schifferdecker allowed nine hits, four runs and no strikeouts recorded. Sanders replaced her and limited the Rockets to three runs, three hits and struck out two batters over the last four innings.
“We made pitches when we needed to make pitches to get out of some tight spots,” Nicholson said.
He is pleased with his teams offense though plans to continue work on defense throughout league play.
“We need to do a better job on defense or it will start catching up with us,” he said.
Ball State completed the weekend today after the game scheduled against Toledo was moved to an earlier time due to uncooperative Easter day weather.
