March 24, 2012

Game 1 - Box Score

Game 2 - Box Score

NAMPA, Idaho --- Stephanie Fox (Sr., Sammamish/Eastlake) survived a rough first inning and followed it up with six shutout innings, lifting the Western Washington University softball team to a 5-3 victory at Northwest Nazarene University in the nightcap of a Great Northwest Athletic Conference softball doubleheader Saturday. The Crusaders won the opening game, 5-3.

The Vikings are now 5-19 overall and 3-11 in the GNAC. Northwest Nazarene is 5-17 overall, 5-13 in conference play.

Fox allowed three runs on four hits in the first inning, but scattered five hits the rest of the way, working out of bases-loaded jams in the second and sixth innings.

The Vikings got all the runs they would need when they scored four runs in the fourth. Two runs were brought in on bases-loaded walks, then an RBI single by Cheyenne Best (Fr., Sedro-Woolley) tied the game, and Matti Tetzlaff (Fr.,Mill Creek/Jackson) scored the go-ahead run on a throwing error.

Western got an insurance run in the fifth when Krista Bickar (Sr.,Hoquiam) hit a solo homer to left, her third home run of the season.

Best and Meghan Carrillo (Fr., Prunedale, CA) each had a pair of hits in the triumph.

It was the first career complete game for Fox (2-3), who spent most of the first three years of her collegiate career as a middle infielder. She had six strikeouts and allowed three walks.

In the opener, Elizabeth Beaty had a two-run double in the bottom of the first, then added another RBI double in the third. The latter put NNU in front, 3-2, and the Crusaders never relinquished the lead.

Carrillo and Kristen Allen (Jr., Arlington) had RBI singles in the third inning for the Vikings. Kaleigh Keating (So., Salinas, CA/Salinas Notre Dame) got Western's other run in the second, scoring on a wild pitch shortly after having a 1-out double.

The Vikings host Central Washington in a double-header Monday, March 26 at 1pm.