COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University softball team continued their perfect season getting two key hits from Zoe Pakes and Brooke Hodgson in a 3-1 first game win before pounding out 16 hits in a 5-inning, 12-0 run-rule second game victory to sweep a Saturday afternoon Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference doubleheader from UCCS at Mountain Lion Field.
 
The Mavericks are now 24-0 overall and 14-0 in RMAC play.  UCCS, which left 13 runners on base throughout the doubleheader, fell to 8-18 overall and 3-11 in the RMAC heading into another doubleheader, slated for an 11 a.m. start on Sunday.
 
In the opening game, which was CMU's narrowest margin of victory for over a month, the Mavericks jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the second on Pakes' solo home run, her sixth of year.
 
The Mavericks then added two more runs in the top of the fifth as Hodgson hit her 13th double of the year down the left-field line to plate Hailey Hinson, who led off the frame with a single before Maggie Manwarren walked.  Alexandria Dufour, who went 5-for-8 throughout the doubleheader, then bunted both runners over to set up Hodgson, for her 45^th and 46^th RBI of the year.
 
The Mountain Lions would pull a run back on an Alex Cook homer in the bottom of the fifth but wasted a pair of 2-out sixth-inning singles and then left yet another runner on base in the bottom of the seventh.
 
Both teams finished the game with seven hits as Manwarren went 2-for-3 while Hinson, the reigning RMAC and Fastpitch News (FPN) NCAA Division II Player of the Week, went 2-for-2 with a walk from the No. 9 spot in the order.
 
Maverick junior McKenzie Surface picked up her 13^th win of the year after striking out four Mountain Lions while lowering her ERA to 2.36.
 
In the second game, the Mavericks and junior pitcher Kimbri Herring, who tallied her third shutout in as many weeks, got out of a 2-on, 1-out jam in the bottom of the first before using their speed to score a pair of runs, the first of which came on a Hinson RBI single.  The Mavericks scored their second when Abby Toller scored from third on a 1^st-and-3^rd double steal attempt.
 
Trailing 2-0, the Mountain Lions left two runners on in the second and left the bases loaded in the third before the Mavericks scored six runs in the top of the fourth to give Herring some runs to play with.
 
She would not need them as she threw a 1-2-3 bottom of the fourth and gave up just a hit and a walk in the fifth to close out her eighth win after spreading six hits and two walks throughout the game while striking out three Mountain Lions.
 
Meanwhile, the Maverick offense exploded in the final innings as an apparently innocent 2-out infield single by Hinson followed by a bunt single from Manwarren set up Dufour for a 3-run homer, her first long ball of the campaign.
 
Kellie Mrofocza then hit a 3-run blast of her own later in the frame as the Mavericks scored all six of their runs with two outs to build what was an 8-0 lead.
 
They then used five hits and two Mountain Lion errors to score four more runs in the fifth to help close out the game via the mercy rule.
 
Dufour went 4-for-4 with two runs and four RBI in the nightcap while Hodgson, AnnMarie Torres, Mrofocza and Hinson all tallied two hits.  Each of the nine starting Mavericks finished with at least one.
 
The Mavericks have now hit at least one home run in each of their last 13 games and have outscored their RMAC opponents 160-14.