Boxscores - Game one/game two
WAVERLY, IA – Wartburg (8-17, 0-4 IIAC) came out strong in both games at Lynes Field April 5, but a pair of rallies by Simpson (18-8, 4-0) doomed the Knights. Simpson took both ends of the Iowa Conference doubleheader winning 9-3 and 5-3.
In the first game, the home side put two on the board in the bottom of the first when sophomore Samantha Kuntzelman (Leaf River, Ill.), pulled a two-out, bases-loaded single to right field. Wartburg continued to maintain the advantage until the Storm put together a strong rally in the top half of the fourth. Simpson pieced together a string of hits and capitalized on a pair of errors by the Knights, leading to a four-run rally.
The nightcap included a pair of hits and runs by junior center fielder Lynn Heitkamp (Galena, Ill.), and a RBI single by junior Lauren Popov (Collinsville, Ill.) Popov was also strong on the mound, holding one of the league’s top-hitting squads to just one run on four hits over the first five innings. Due to that, the Orange and Black held a 2-1 lead through five, but the visitors eventually tied the game up in the sixth and crossed the plate twice in the seventh.
The Black and Orange will be back in action on Saturday, April 9th at 2:00 p.m. in Waverly, as they take on Coe College of Cedar Rapids.
NOTES: Kuntzelman’s two-RBI game in the opener put her at five multiple-RBI outings for the season, good for the team lead. … Heitkamp’s two multiple-hit contests put her at 13 such games for the year. Her efforts against Simpson continued a strong recent run where her batting average is up 34 points over the last six games.
