In home opener, Blue Devil take two from Bethany Lutheran

UW-Stout 4, Bethany Lutheran College 1 | UW-Stout 9, Bethany Lutheran College 4

MENOMONIE (April 8, 2019) - When opportunity knocked, UW-Stout opened the door and walked through to sweep past Bethany Lutheran, 4-1, 9-4, in Stout's home opener at Alumni Field Monday.

In weather that actually resembled spring, the Blue Devils (13-8) shut down Bethany Lutheran (14-9) in the first inning of the opener, leaving two Vikings on base. Stout shifted the defensive momentum to offense and tallied four runs in the bottom of the inning, all the runs they would need to take the win.

Mary Iliopoulos opened with a single and moved to second when the first baseman could not field the ball. Following an out, Jessica Daley walked and Meghan Kelly drove home Iliopoulos with a double to center and moved Daley to third. Daley scored when Kelly Beck laid down a sacrifice bunt, but the Vikings elected to go after Daley and Daley avoided the tag to score. Kelly moved to third and Beck took another base unhindered. Kelly and Beck came home when Alicia Meyer plated them both with a double to center field and Stout led 4-1.

Melea Bruns captured the win, going the distance, giving up nine hits, but only allowing one run to cross the plate, a solo home run by Halley Sorbrero in the fifth inning. 

Stout was held to four hits, with Meyer going 2-for-3. Iliopoulos and Kelly had the other two hits.

Just like the first game, the Vikings threatened in the first inning, but this time the visitors struck pay-dirt when Sorbrero hit her second home run of the day, a two-run shot to left field.

The Blue Devils failed to get anything going until the third inning when the roof collapsed for Bethany.

Iliopoulos and Diedrich hit back-to-back singles, then did a double steal to put themselves both in scoring position. Daley reached on a suicide squeeze when the Vikings shortstop elected to make a play on Iliopoulos and threw the ball away, allowing Iliopoulos to score. Diedrich scored on Kelly's single and Daley moved to third. Kate Horn came in to pinch run for Kelly and stole second when Bethany made a play on Daley. Didn't matter...following a groundout, Meyer delivered both runs with a double, then legged it home on Renee Murphy's single to left center and Stout led 5-2. 

Stout scored twice more in the fourth on a sacrifice fly by Daley and a suicide squeeze by Kelly to score Iliopoulos. Stout built their lead to 7-2 in the sixth inning when Diedrich and Daley drove in runs. The Vikings scored two runs in the seventh, on a home run by Courtney Williams and an RBI single by Sorbrero.

Stout pounded out 13 hits in the second game. Both Iliopoulos and Diedrich were 3-for-4. Diedrich stole three bases in the game as Stout stole six bases in total. Daley was 2-for-3 with two RBI and Murphy was 2-for-3.

Sommer Kunstmann picked up the win, going six innings, striking out one and surrendering six hits. Madee Kleinschmidt entered in the sixth and gave up one hit, but collected the final three outs.

Stout is scheduled to play at UW-La Crosse, Thursday, April 11, weather permitting, then host UW-Oshkosh, Saturday, April 13 and UW-Whitewater, Sunday, April 14.