Red Devils Nearly Sweep Fontbonne on Road
ST. ANN, Mo. – The Eureka softball team split a pair of close St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference showdowns on Monday.
The Red Devils held off the Griffins 4-1 in the opener, but the Griffins got the edge in a 10-9 win in extra innings.
Despite the loss, Mackenzie Daniels (Monticello, Ill./Monticello) became the first Red Devil to homer twice in the same game this season and the first since Remi Ferguson on March 27, 2021.
Eureka is now 11-18 on the season and 6-6 in SLIAC play.
Game 1: Eureka 4, Fontbonne 1
The Red Devils rallied for four runs on three hits in the second inning, and Sidney Wightman (Waterloo, Ill./Gibault Catholic) turned in one of her best pitching performances of the season.
The senior held the Griffins to one run on seven hits and three walks in seven innings, struck out two batters and recorded her sixth win of the season in the circle.
Eureka's big inning started with Daniels getting a leadoff walk, Delaney Douglas (Sugar Grove, Ill./Kaneland) singling and Christine Mepham (Bourbonnais, Ill./Bradley-Bourbonnais) reaching on an error to load the bases.
Two batters later, Raelyn Payne (Lexington, Ill./Lexington). Payne, who entered the game leading the SLIAC with a .494 batting average, promptly doubled to right field to drive in two runs.
The next batter, Kate LeMasters (Metamora, Ill./Metamora) singled to center and brought home two more.
In the sixth, Fontbonne finally got on the board with an unearned run following an EC fielding error.
Wightman, however, got the next batter to fly out to left.
The Griffins threatened to overtake the visitors in the seventh, loading the bases and bringing the go-ahead run to the plate, but Wightman and the Red Devils' defense got the job done with back-to-back fielder's choice groundouts to end it.
Eureka won it with just six hits. LeMasters finished with 2-for-3 with a pair of RBI. In addition to Payne, Elly Maier (Clinton, Ill./Clinton) also had a double, while Bri Tanksley (Spring Bay, Ill./Metamora) and Douglas each singled.
Game 2: Fontbonne 10, Eureka 9 (9 inn.)
Eureka started strong, but Fontbonne came back from down seven runs to force extra innings and top the Red Devils in the ninth.
The visitors jumped out to a 7-0 lead, with Bria Wessel (Peoria, Ill./Limestone) knocking an RBI single to put the maroon and gold on the board in the first and EC posting six runs on seven hits in the third.
A Wessel fielder's choice with two in scoring position scored one, a tricky double-steal by Wessel at first and LeMasters at third resulted in another and an RBI single by Tressa Grisham (Morton, Ill./East Peoria) made it 4-0.
That set up Daniels to launch the first home run of her career – a two-run shot – into the wind and over the center-field fence. A few batters later, Payne singled to give the Red Devils a 7-0 lead.
It ended up not being enough.
The Griffins got one back in the bottom half, then tallied three more the following inning to make it a three-run game.
In the fifth, Daniels crushed her second bomb of the afternoon to left-center. Her solo dinger made it 8-4. The home team chopped it in half with two runs in the sixth and close the gap with two in the seventh.
In the eighth, neither team were able to take advantage of the international tiebreaker rule. But in the ninth, LeMasters led off with a single to right field that allowed the speedy Payne to race home and put the Red Devils ahead.
Things got messy for EC in the bottom half, though.
Fontbonne reached on an error that allowed the game-tying run to score.
Grace Paez, the runner who reached on that miscue, advanced to third on a single and was then replaced by pinch runner Madelyn Holtmeyer. After Eureka got two outs and put another possible out on with an intentional walk, Holtmeyer scored the game-winning run on a passed ball.
Eureka outhit Fontbonne in the loss 14-12.
Daniels finished with 3-for-5 while recording her first two career home runs. LeMasters also went 3-for-5. Payne and Mepham had two hits apiece.