SAN RAFAEL, Calif. – Despite assuming leads in the respective first innings of each game, Academy of Art softball wound up falling in both contests of Saturday's Pacific West Conference doubleheader at Dominican's Penguin Field. A 3-1 game one victory came by way of a two-run rally in the third inning while the series finale saw the Urban Knights go ahead 6-0 before the Penguins came all the way back with a seven-run fourth en route to the 7-6 final. Late in the second game, graduate student outfielder
Gabi Hirsch swiped her second base of the day to break the program's career record.
GAME 1 – DU 3, ART U 1
After freshman outfielder
Cailee Grayhorse-Pupecki connected for a one-out single in the first inning, junior catcher/infielder
Lauryn Henderson took an 0-2 pitch into center field to double home her teammate and give Academy of Art a 1-0 lead.
Senior pitcher
Hannah Rose Balke (6-7) pitched around a double in her first frame then followed that up with a clean second, but Dominican put together a two-run rally on three hits in the third to move in front 2-1. The Penguins would add one more in the fifth and though the Knights brought the tying run to the plate with isolated hits in the sixth and seventh, the home team held on for a 3-1 victory.
GAME 2 – DU 7, ART U 6
Once again starting on a strong note, Hirsch's leadoff single and steal to tie Haily MacDonald's program career record (64) set up Academy of Art for a trio of run-scoring singles by Henderson, freshman infielder
Haley Randall, and junior utility
Neenah Pangilinan. The 3-0 advantage grew by one run in the second after sophomore outfielder
Bethany Mitchell tripled for the second time this season then came home on Hirsch's subsequent groundout.
In the third, Henderson continued building her team's lead with a leadoff home run, her fifth of the season, and some small ball in the fourth saw Mitchell single, steal second, and score on an error to make it 6-0. Junior pitcher
Cecilia Lopez (4-3) had blanked Dominican through the first three innings, but ran into trouble when the Penguins began their half of the fourth with seven consecutive hits. When the dust had settled, DU had scored seven runs, moving in front 7-6.
The Knights got the tying run into scoring position in the three innings that followed, including Hirsch singling and stealing the 65th base of her career to break the record in the sixth, but Dominican escaped unscathed in each instance and emerged 7-6 winners.
Academy of Art, now 12-12 overall and 11-9 in PacWest play, was led by Henderson's 2-for-5 day which included a home run, two runs batted in, and two runs scored. She extended her reached base streak to 22 games and her current hit streak to 10 games. Hirsch went 2-for-4 in game two with the two steals to give her the program record while Randall added her own 2-for-4 effort with one RBI in that contest. Grayhorse-Pupecki and Mitchell had hits in each side of the twinbill, going 2-for-7 with a double and 3-for-6 with a triple and a steal respectively.
Dominican moves to 14-14 overall and 13-7 in conference action with the day's results. Mady Christensen led the Penguins with three RBIs on the day which all came on her homer in the second contest. Winning for the second consecutive start against ART U, Shelby Keltner (7-7) allowed one run on five hits with five strikeouts in game one ahead of a 5.0-inning winning effort from Kathryn Caravalho (4-3) that saw her give up four runs on five hits with four strikeouts.
When the Urban Knights return to NCAA Division II action next, it will be for a Senior Day non-conference noon doubleheader with Humboldt State on Apr. 25 at Mission Blue Field.
