Kansas Wesleyan Softball went toe-to-toe with Avila University Eagles on Wednesday at Salina South High School. The Coyotes would take the Eagles to extra innings in the first game falling 8-5 in nine, before rallying for a 5-3 win in the second game of the doubleheader.
The split keeps KWU's conference record at .500 at 3-3, while the Avila loss was the Eagles' first of the conference season as they fell to 5-1 in the KCAC. Avila is receiving votes in the latest NAIA Top 25 poll.
The opener was scoreless until the third when Avila put two on the board thanks to a pair of 2-out walks and a pair of 2-out hits.
Wesleyan got on the board in the bottom of the fourth inning as MacKenzie Vela led off the inning with a homer down the line in left field. Avila responded with a run in the top of the fifth to make it 3-1, but the Coyotes evened things up in the bottom of the inning.
Morgan Rasmussen led off the inning with a doubled and moved to third on Brooklyn Lange's double. The Coyotes tried to squeeze twice to push a run across but were unsuccessful. Keira Hammen then stepped up and hit a 2-run double to center to tie things up at 3-3.
Avila got a run in the sixth to take the lead, but the Coyotes answered right back in the bottom of the inning. Elli Han was hit by a pitch and two batters later, the Coyotes got back-to-back hits by Rasmussen and Lange to bring in a run and tie it again.
Neither team was able to score in the seventh, sending the game to extra innings.
In the top of the eighth, Avila was able to push the tiebreaker runner across to take a 5-4 lead. In the bottom of the eighth, the Coyotes got tiebreaker runner Vela home on a wild pitch to tie things up again and force another frame.
Avila led off its half of the ninth with a RBI double and then added two more on a wild pitch and error to take an 8-5 lead.
The Coyotes were unable to score in the ninth.
Rasmussen had three of KWU's nine hits in the game, while Lange added two. Bella Allen went the distance allowing eight runs, five earned, on 12 hits.
In the second game the Coyotes used a four-run first inning to come away with the 5-3 win over the Eagles.
Avila got on the board first in the top of the first inning, but the Coyotes responded with four in the bottom half. Lange led off the inning with a triple, then scored on Kendell Wilcox's double. Vela followed with a single and Hammen followed with an RBI ground-rule double. Kama Seminavage brought in a run on a groundout and Elli Hann brought in KWU's fourth run of the inning with a sacrifice fly.
The Coyotes added another run in the bottom of the second as Lange clubbed a homer to out to center to make it 5-1.
Avila got single runs in the third and fifth innings to make it 5-3, but the Coyotes would stop Avila's chances at scoring in the sixth and seventh innings.
Lange and Wilcox had two hits each for the Coyotes in the game. Alli Mickelsen got the win in the circle going four-plus innings, facing one batter in the fifth before exiting with an injury. Addie Herrera got her first collegiate save going three innings, holding Avila to two hits and recording two strikeouts.