Hiram hurlers lead sweep of Owls

GAMBIER, Ohio — In its final home doubleheader of the season, the Kenyon College softball team struggled to solve Hiram College pitchers. The visiting Terriers held the Owls to nine hits across the two conference contests and chalked up wins of 9-0 and 13-3.

In game one, Hiram starter Darian Kanno dominated. She threw all five innings and struck out nine. The three-time North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Pitcher of the Week honoree, yielded just three hits while upping her record to 8-4 and lowering her earned run average to 1.46.

All Kenyon bats could muster against Kanno were singles from Arianna Jalomo, Madison Buckwalter, and Jesse Leener.

Hiram didn’t overwhelm Kenyon starting pitcher Amanda Harris, but the Terriers did smack a bunch of singles. In all, Hiram had eight hits in game one, seven of which were of the one-base variety. The other was a double. Harris struck out four and seven of the nine runs she yielded were earned.

The Terriers scored three times in the first inning, once in the second, and then blew the game open with a five-run fourth inning that included a hit-by-pitch, two walks, two singles, and one Kenyon error.

In game two, Kenyon batters had more success making contact, but when they did put the ball in play it, more often than not, was right at a fielder. Hiram starter Angel Santellan only struck out one in her three innings of work, but she also only gave up two hits.

Meanwhile, the Terriers offense was posting more crooked numbers, including a two in the first inning, a three in the third inning, and a five in the fourth. 

With a 10-0 lead, Hiram decided to pull Santellan in the bottom of the fourth inning and looked to reliever Jeskari Rodriguez to finish things off. Kenyon had other ideas. The Owls came to life in the inning, getting to Rodriguez for three runs on four hits. Maeve McLaughlin and Jalomo started things off with back-to-back singles. Two batters later, Leener doubled home both runners. Leener then came around to score on a single struck by Samantha Goldenson. 

From there, Rodriguez was replaced by Trinity Meza, who shut the Owls down the rest of the way. The Terriers tacked on three more runs in the top of the fifth inning to finalize all scoring.

Hiram out-hit Kenyon 16-6 in the second game and the Terriers also capitalized on three Owl errors. Sofia Zayas was Kenyon’s game two starting pitcher. She threw into the fourth frame and took the loss. Allison McCutchen relieved Zayas and finished off the contest.

Kanno, who tortured Kenyon with her arm in game one, did the same with her bat in game two, going 2-for-4 with four runs scored and three RBI. The trio of RBI came on a three-run homer in the fourth.

The two losses dropped Kenyon to 1-29 overall and 0-12 in the NCAC. Hiram improved to 19-13 overall and 6-6 in conference play. Up next for Kenyon is a non-conference make-up doubleheader at Capital University on Friday.