NORTH NEWTON – Kansas Wesleyan and Bethel played a softball doubleheader on Saturday at Wedel Field and the teams split the two games. Bethel won the opener 3-2, and the Coyotes came back with an eight run eighth inning to win 11-6 in the second game.
The eighth of the second game was wild as the teams combined for 11 runs after it was tied 3-3 after seven innings.
Brianna McGinnis (JR/Tucson, Ariz.) led off the inning with a walk, but a wild pitch allowed tiebreaker runner Bailey Rivas (FR/West Covina, Calif.) to go to third on the play. Two batters later Miranda Guerrero (SO/Oxnard, Calif.) knocked in a pair of runs and then Guerrero stole second and scored when the Bethel center fielder misplayed the ball that went through the infield on the throw.
Paige Anderson (SO/Lakeville, Minn.) and Lauren Blue (SR/Arlington, Texas) singled, and after another wild pitch, Jessica Vegely (SR/Mariposa, Calif.) reached on an error that brought in two more runs for the Coyotes. Kiana Turner (SO/Quapaw, Okla.) was hit and two batters later Rivas connected on a 2-run triple to put the Coyotes up 11-3.
Bethel tried to rally scored three runs in the bottom of the inning but could not add any additional runs.
In the opener all the scoring was done in the first two innings. Bethel with three runs in the first and the Coyotes with two in the second.
KWU left 10 runners on base in the first game.
After Bethel scored three runs in the first, the Coyotes got a single by McGinnis followed by a triple by Carmen Angulo (JR/Long Beach, Calif.). Paola Cordova (FR/El Paso, Texas) then singled to score Angulo to get the Coyotes within a run.
Wesleyan had a chance in the fourth to add runs, but would leave the bases loaded in the inning. KWU stranded two more in the fifth, and two more in the sixth without getting the game-tying run across.
Bethel scored twice in the first inning of the second game, but the Coyotes got on the board in the third as Anderson walked, then Vegely and Turner singled to load the bases. Sydney Brown (JR/Tucson, Ariz.) drove in the run with a sacrifice fly to get the Coyotes on the board.
The Coyotes loaded the bases again in the fourth with hits by McGinnis, Angulo and Guerrero ahead of Anderson's 2-run double that put the Coyotes up 3-2.
Bethel tied it up at 3-all in the fifth with a run.
Lauren Blue had two hits in each game, while McGinnis, Guerrero and Anderson had two hits each in the second game. Angulo went the distance in the circle both games, allowing three runs on four hits with four strikeouts in the opener, and allowed five runs, four earned in the nightcap with a strikeout.
The Coyotes host No. 25 ranked Ottawa on Wednesday at 2 p.m. at Salina South High School.
--kwucoyotes.com--