Blue Devils fall twice to River Falls in two opposite types of games

UW-River Falls 2, UW-Stout 1 | UW-River Falls 12, UW-Stout 9

RIVER FALLS (April 22, 2015) – Runs were hard to come by in the first game, but not in the second game. Either way, the outcome was still the same as UW-Stout was swept by UW-River Falls, 2-1, 12-9, Wednesday at Ramer Field.

The two teams combined for seven hits in game one, Stout with three and River Falls four, while the teams combined for 20 hits in game two, the Blue Devils with eight, the Falcons 12.

In the opener, the Falcons drew first blood, taking advantage of two Stout errors to score a single run in the second inning. The Falcons doubled their tally in the fifth inning when Kaitlyn Lepine smacked an RBI single.

Stout cut the lead in half in the sixth inning. Nicole Rogers (Jr, Brooklyn Center, Minn) led off the inning with a double, then came home on Karley Wiensch's (Jr, Chippewa Falls) RBI single up the middle.

Wiensch was 2-for-2 for the Blue Devils, as was Lepine for the Falcons.

The break between games must have energized the teams. Stout's Taylor Workman (Sr, Prior Lake, Minn) delivered a three run home run in the first inning, but the Falcons scored six runs in the bottom of the stanza, highlighted by a two-run home run by Brooke Lauritzen.

Stout took the lead back with a four-run second inning. Rogers drove in two runs with a single and Heather Bol (So, Baldwin) brought home a pair of runs and Stout had a 7-6 lead....but not for long. The Falcons tied the score in the bottom of the inning when Lepine hit a solo shot.

Bol gave Stout the lead back in the fourth inning with a two-run double. The lead was short lived. The Falcons knotted the score at 9-9 on Aiyana Ledwein's RBI single in the fifth inning.

Amber O'Connell ended the game with a one-out, three run walk-off home run in the bottom of the seventh.

Bol, Taylor Workman and Rachel Thomas (Fr, Hastings, Minn) each had two hits for the Blue Devils. O'Connell had three hits for the Falcons. Ledwein, Lupine and Lauritzen each had two hits.

Tori Workman (Jr, Prior Lake, Minn) took the loss in both games. Workman went the distance in the opener, striking out six. Workman came on in relief in the third inning of the second game, going 4.1 innings, striking out five, increasing her league-leading total to 125.

Stout will close out the conference season when they travel to UW-Superior, Saturday, April 25, then return home to host Gustavus Adolphus, Sunday, April 26 at 1 p.m. and Hamline University, Tuesday, April 28 at 4 p.m.