Sept. 25, 2006
AMES, Iowa -- The University of Northern Iowa softball team posted a pair of impressive wins Sunday to earn a split of its weekend games against three in-state rivals in the Big Four Tournament. The Panthers bounced back from losses Saturday to Iowa and Iowa State with a 6-1 win over the Hawkeyes and an 8-0 victory over Drake to finish its most competitive weekend of the fall season on a high note.
Iowa defeated the Panthers in their weekend opener, 11-1, before host team Iowa State got the best of UNI, 6-3, in Saturday's second game.
Freshman Ashley Lepley (Albia, Iowa/Albia) pitched a complete-game gem to propel the Panthers past Iowa in Sunday's first game, allowing a single run on five hits. Iowa's Emily Nichols went 3-for-3, but Lepley held the rest of the Hawkeye lineup to a scant two hits on her way to the win.
Lepley helped her cause by blasting a two-run home run while another freshman, outfielder Jamie Kelling (Davenport, Iowa/West) drove in another run for the Panthers, as did Kelly Papesh (Minooka, Ill./Minooka), who tallied an RBI double.
Another spirited pitching performance carried UNI past Missouri Valley Conference foe Drake in the weekend finale, with freshman Jen Larsen (Moline, Ill./Moline) allowing just three hits over five innings in the circle and freshman Sarah Bakey closing things out with two innings of no-hit ball.
The Panthers' lineup pounded out 14 hits off Bulldog pitching, including a 3-for-4 performance by Larsen, a 2-for-3 effort by Megan Machovec (DeWitt, Iowa/Central DeWitt) and two hits by freshman Whitney Link (Ankeny, Iowa/Des Moines East), who posted an RBI double. Stephanie Aguero (Muscatine, Iowa/Muscatine) drove in a run with a triple, while Lepley, Heather Tartar (Fairbury, Ill./Prairie Central) and Nikki Ferden (Eldridge, Iowa/North Scott) each pushed runs across. Jessica Barkley (Mitchellville, Iowa/Southeast Polk) brought in another run with a perfectly executed suicide squeeze play in the sixth inning.
The weekend got off to slow start for the Panthers, who opened the door for seven Iowa runs with three errors in the second inning of Saturday's contest. Link went 2-for-3 and drove in a run in the first inning, but the Panthers were unable to bring any additional runs across and managed six hits for the game. Lepley allowed the Hawkeyes a single hit in a relief appearance lasting 3 1/3 innings.
Aguero drove in a pair of runs for UNI against the host Cyclones, while Kelling and Machovec each turned in multi-hit games, but the Panthers could not hold ISU's lineup in check.
The Panthers wrap up their fall season this weekend with a pair of games against Muscatine Community College on Sunday. Action gets underway at noon, with both games to be held at Panther Park.
