A beautiful weekend for Lady Orediggers

With bad weather in the forecast on Sunday, the Colorado School of Mines softball team had their games rescheduled to a Friday-Saturday series with two games each day. Blessed with beautiful weather both Friday and Saturday, Mines took three of the four games to improve their record to 15-22 and 11-17 in the RMAC.

After losing their first game to Colorado Christian on Friday, the Lady Orediggers beat Adams State in their Friday finale. In their two games on Saturday, Mines put up 12 runs in each game beating both Adams State and Colorado Christian by the combined score of 24-4.

{gallery}1314/i23/softball{/gallery}In the first game, Kristen Prudhomme started out strong, giving up only one run and a walk through the first five innings, but heading into the with Mines up 3-1, CCU scored three in the sixth and seven runs in the seventh to win 11-3. Prudhomme gave up seven earned runs on five hits and three walks. Cassie Ford had went 2-for-3 with two RBI and a run scored. Ford had a two-out double in the fifth to score Kara Walling and Morgan Anderson to give the Lady Orediggers the short lived lead.

In the second game, Mines defeated Adams State 5-4. Prudhomme pitched seven strong innings giving up one earned on 10 hits to earn her eleventh win of the year. Mines struck first in the bottom of the first when Paige Noehring took home on a fielder’s choice when Anderson was caught stealing second. The Lady Orediggers added to their lead in the third with two runs. Adams State responded in the fifth inning scoring one run, but in the bottom of the inning Mines scored two more to stretch their lead to 5-1. The Grizzlies tried to rally in the seventh, scoring three runs on three hits thanks to two errors by the Orediggers, but Mines settled down and got the final three outs to take the 5-4 lead. Melissa Walling went 2-for-3 with an RBI and Jennifer Tippetts was 1-for-3 with an RBI. Melissa Marshall scored two and Noehring scored one and had an RBI, both were 2-for-3. Gianna Duncan walked three times in the contest.

The Orediggers got on the board first in the second inning when Gianna Duncan’s RBI triple scored teammate Melissa Marshall. Duncan later scored when Kara Walling put down a perfect bunt to give the Orediggers the early 2-0 lead. Adams State responded in the third scoring three runs on two hits. In the bottom of the inning the Orediggers responded with three runs of their own to lead 5-3. Courtney Derus homered to left, scoring Sami Springer and later in the inning Marshall scored on a fielder’s choice. In the fourth inning, Mines padded their lead scoring seven runs on eight hits. The Orediggers recorded five of their runs on RBI singles and six of the seven runs came with two outs. Prudhomme then shut down the side in the fifth to end the game on a mercy rule in five innings. Prudhomme recorded her twelfth win of the year pitching all five innings giving up three earned on six hits with four strikeouts and one walk. Marshall had two RBIs on 2-for-3 hitting and Derus also had 2 RBIs with her team leading ninth home run of the year. Also with two RBIs, Duncan and Walling both went 3-for-3.

In their final game of the weekend, the Lady Orediggers flirted with a perfect game and mercy-ruled their second straight team defeating Colorado Christian 12-1 in five innings. Kristen Prudhomme (13-16) recorded her third victory of the weekend and now leads the RMAC with 13 wins. Prudhomme retired the first 12 batters she faced. In the fifth inning, her perfect game ended with a hit by pitch, but at that point she still had a no-no bid. After the next two batters reached via a walk and a fielder’s choice, the no-hitter was broken up with two-outs on an RBI groundball through the left side of the infield. Mines started off the scoring in the first with an RBI single by Courtney Derus. In the third, the Lady Orediggers jumped all over CCU scoring nine runs on seven hits and one fielding error. They added two more runs in the fourth on an error to lead 12-0 heading into the final inning. Marshall and Duncan both had two RBIs, while Noehring, Anderson, Springer, Derus, and Walling all had one RBI. In the game, Derus extended her hitting streak to eight.

The next contest for the Lady Orediggers will be Friday and Saturday against Metro State.