REDDING, Calif. –
Gabby Sandoval picked up a win and a save,
Allie Stines enjoyed a four-hit afternoon and the top-ranked Southern Oregon softball team opened its season with back-to-back victories Saturday at the Simpson Softball Field.
Sandoval went the distance for her 78th career win in the opener, a 6-1 defeat of Simpson (Calif.) that the Raiders busted open with a four-run seventh inning. They followed up by beating Holy Names (Calif.) 4-3, as Stines went 3-for-4 with a double and two RBIs and
Abbie Lewis drove in the go-ahead run with a double in the fourth inning.
Lewis, a junior transfer making her SOU debut, led off the game against Simpson with a triple and came home on
Hannah Shimek's single. The Raiders made it 2-0 in the fourth after
Olivia Mackey's double drove in
Lauren Quirke, who started the frame with an infield hit.
Sandoval struck out five and walked one in a six-hitter, giving up the Redhawks' only run on Emily Fuller's fourth-inning home run. The lineup gave her some breathing room in the seventh, where
Olivia Mackey,
Avery Morehead-Hutsell and Lewis loaded the bases and Stines came through with a two-run single that preceded Quirke's two-run double.
Mackey and Morehead-Hutsell both accounted for two of SOU's nine hits in the contest.
Against Holy Names, Stines gave the Raiders another first-inning lead with a double that chased home Lewis. They went up 3-1 in the second on RBI singles from Shimek and Stines, but HNU's Aly Cerda tied the score with a two-run homer in the bottom of the third.
Lewis' decisive swing in the fourth drove in
Mackenzie Evangelisti, who pinch-ran for
Erika Marquez after a hit and was sacrificed into scoring position by Morehead-Hutsell.
Quirke earned the pitching decision with 2 2/3 innings of scoreless relief. She ran into trouble in the seventh with runners on first and third with no outs, however, triggering the decision to call on Sandoval.
HNU assisted in the jam by running themselves out of it: Lyndsey Widner was tagged out at home on a failed first-and-third double steal, and Sandoval struck out Cienna Cheshier before inducing Aloni Appleton's grounder to shortstop for the final out.
The Raiders will play the same teams at the same site Sunday, facing HNU and noon and Simpson at 2 p.m.
