TUCSON, Ariz.— The Colorado Mesa University split games at the Cactus Classic here at Lincoln Park for the second straight day as they defeated St. Mary's, 9-1 before falling in a 7-5 extra-inning heartbreaker to Eastern New Mexico on Friday.
The split leaves the Mavericks with a 6-3 record heading into their final pre-conference tune-up against national No. 2 Texas A&M-Kingsville on Saturday at 10 a.m.
Colorado Mesa 9, St. Mary's 1
Freshman
Camryn Mullen and senior
Bailey Kleespies each recorded four hits and combined for six RBIs and three runs scored while sophomore
Shea Mauser allowed just one run and six hits in the complete game win to move to 4-0.
Mullen went 4-for-4 with three RBIs and three runs scored while banging out two doubles. Kleespies was 4-for-5 with three RBIs. She also added a 2-bagger.
AnnMarie Torres also hit two doubles and was 2-for-4 with two runs scored and two RBIs as the Mavericks registered 15 hits against the Rattlers (2-9).
The Mavericks scored twice in the first and twice in the top of the third inning to go ahead 4-1. They then added a run in the fifth and added four more runs in the seventh as several players received pinch-hitting opportunities.
Eastern New Mexico 7, Colorado Mesa 5 (8 innings)
The Mavericks tied the game on two separate occasions only to drop it in the eighth as the Greyhounds scored three runs and used some timely hitting to pull out the win to move to 4-1. They had just four hits but did not leave any runners on base throughout the evening.
The Mavericks left 11 on base and finished with eight hits.
After going up 1-0 on a Mullen single up the middle in the bottom of the third, the Mavericks gave up two home runs and three runs in the top of the fifth as ENMU took a 3-1 lead.
However, Torres hit a 2-run homer in the bottom half of the frame to tie the game at 3.
Neither team would score in the sixth before the Greyhounds scored once in the seventh only to see CMU come back again as Kleespies drew a 2-out bases-loaded walk.
The Greyhounds then scored three runs in the international tie-breaker eighth inning before the Mavericks could only scratch out one.
Paige Adair got the start for the Mavericks and finished with eight strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings as she fanned seven of the first nine Greyhounds she faced. However, the two home runs in the fifth promoted the Mavericks to make a change to
Ellie Smith, who went the rest of the way. She allowed just two hits in 3 2/3 innings of relief and struck out three while taking the loss to fall to 2-2 on the season.
Lauren Wedman was 2-for-4 with three runs scored while Mullen finished 2-for-4 in the game and 6-for-8 on the day.
