ORANGE CITY, Iowa – In a season of records for the Dakota Wesleyan University softball team, another DWU all-time mark went down as the Tigers swept a Great Plains Athletic Conference doubleheader Tuesday in Orange City, Iowa.
The Tigers topped Northwestern College with a 4-0 shutout in game one, while DWU scored two late to take game two 4-2, extending the team winning streak to eight. The wins push DWU to 31-17 overall and 14-6 in the GPAC. The Tigers sit comfortably in third place in the conference with just two games left in the league season.
Early in game one, history was made for DWU. With a single in the third inning, senior catcher Hailey Unger (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) moved into first place on the DWU all-time hits list with 167. Unger holds the DWU career marks for hits, runs, RBIs, doubles and home runs.
The Unger single got DWU rolling in the third inning as freshman Sierra Haage (Sioux Falls, S.D.), freshman Karly Severance (Las Vegas, Nev.) and senior Vanessa Mendez (Monterey Park, Calif.) each picked up an RBI in the inning to push DWU ahead 3-0.
The Tigers added another run in the fifth with the 10th home run of the season from freshman Savannah Ahumada (Turlock, Calif.), a solo shot to right centerfield.
The production was more than enough for Haage, who tossed all seven innings on the mound. She allowed no runs on five hits, while striking out six and walking three. Haage is now 13-6 this season, just three wins from the DWU single-season record. She also has 100 strikeouts on the season.
The Tigers and Red Raiders battled to a scoreless draw through four innings in game two. DWU broke through in the fifth when Ahumada went deep again, this time a two-run homer. Northwestern answered right back to tie the game with two in the bottom half of the inning.
The game-winning run for DWU came on an RBI groundout by junior Elise Sutherland (Stansbury, Utah) to drive in Mendez in the sixth. The Tigers added an insurance run in the seventh on a Northwestern error.
The win went to freshman Hallie Misiaszek (Mitchell, S.D.), who threw seven innings, allowing two unearned runs on eight hits, while walking three and striking out four. Misiaszek is 12-5 this season, just behind fellow starter Haage in the chase for a DWU record for wins in a season.
The Tigers step out of conference play to take on South Dakota State University at 3 p.m. Thursday in Brookings, S.D.