WMVO Good Times Great Oldies
GAMBIER, Ohio — Playing the last home games of their collegiate careers, seniors Nicole Bishay and Emily Buckwalter led the Kenyon College softball team to a doubleheader sweep of the visiting Allegheny College Gators on Tuesday.
Bishay pitched a complete game two-hitter in Kenyon’s 4-0 game-one win. Buckwalter followed up with a three-run walk-off home run that ended game two in five innings with a 12-4 final score. The pair of wins puts Kenyon at 24-14 overall and 6-8 in the North Coast Athletic Conference standings.
In Tuesday’s opener, Bishay worked seven innings and gave up just two hits and two walks. She hit one batter and struck out four. The performance improved her season marks to 15-5 with a 2.39 earned run average and a .247 batting average against. Her win total and her two averages all rank third-best in the program’s single-season record book.
As for offense, Kenyon scored two in the third and once in both the fourth and sixth innings.
In the third, Grace Finn, Sara Campagna and Buckwalter all singled to load the bases. Bella Albrecht then hit a sacrifice fly that scored Finn. One batter later, Natalya Delsante ropped a double off the fence that scored Campagna.
In the fourth, Clare McMahon singled and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt from Kassie Rimel. Maddie Friday then singled to left center, plating McMahon. Two innings later, Friday struck again, doubling to left field to score pinch runner Julia Holton.
In game two, Buckwalter played a role in tallying half of the Ladies’ dozen runs. She went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and six RBI. Three of runs came on a bottom-of-the-fifth bomb with two runners aboard. For the day, Buckwalter was a combined 5-for-7 at the dish.
The Ladies and Gators played a close contest for the first three innings of the second game. In the fourth, however, the Ladies torched Allegheny pitching for seven runs on eight hits. Five of those eighth hits were singles up the middle. Friday, Finn, Campagna, Buckwalter, Albrecht and Bishay all had RBI hits during the barrage, which gave Kenyon a 9-3 lead and set the stage for Buckwalter’s walk-off.
Finn wrapped up the day 3-for-7 with four runs scored and one RBI. She now has 149 career runs scored, just one shy of the Kenyon record. Friday, batting in the ninth spot, went a combined 3-for-6 with two runs scored and three RBI. Campagna finished with three hits, as well, and Bishay chalked up a four-hit day.
The Ladies have just one doubleheader left in their regular-season schedule. That twinbill is slated for Saturday at No. 9-ranked DePauw University.
