Senior Kimberly Dauer (4-6) picked up her fourth victory of the season with an impressive shutout of Dominican in the series opener then came in to notch the third save of her career in game two this past Saturday.
Dauer battled through a bases-loaded situation in the first inning, but got out of it and later retired eight Penguins in a row across the fourth through sixth innings. Dominican started the seventh with a single and sacrifice bunt, but when faced with a pinch-hitter, Dauer struck her out swinging and got a flyout to end it with her team on top 3-0. Coming in to face one batter in an 8-7 game two after Dominican threatened a comeback, Dauer calmly finished off the ART U victory with a strikeout to record the save and preserve teammate Haily MacDonald's third win of the year.
"Both Kim and Haily [MacDonald] have been doing a great job for us and they're both extremely dependable," Coach Strinz said. "We're going to get a lot of ground balls from both of them and that just makes life easier. They give us quick and easy outs so we can keep the momentum on our side and they did a great job of just going right at batters today."
Dauer, who leads the Urban Knights with a 2.43 ERA, now ranks second in the PacWest in innings pitched (57.2), third in strikeouts (44), and third in opposing batting average (.205).
