ELSAH, Ill. — After dropping the first game of a doubleheader at the Blackburn College Softball Field on Tuesday evening, 9-1, the Knox College softball team was enjoying a 2-1 lead and threatening to score more against the host Beavers when the threatening skies prevailed and caused the contest to be suspended due to lightning and impending rain. When the game will continue has yet to be determined.
The Beavers improved to 6-9 with the victory on the strength of a 13-hit attack and home runs by Grace Mackey and Kenadee Frey. The Prairie Fire, meanwhile, fell to 0-19 on the season as senior Maddie Poetzinger drove in the lone run on a fifth-inning RBI single, shortly after fifth-year Londyn Nelson broke up the no-hitter with a clean base hit to left.
Blackburn starter Shelby Koenig (5-2), coming off a five-inning perfect game in which she struck out all 15 batters she faced, continued that streak by fanning the first four Knox batters and retiring the first 10 before fifth-year Haylee Carpenter reached base on an error. The Prairie finally broke through when Nelson singled in the fifth and Poetzinger poked an RBI single to center, cutting the deficit to two at 3-1.
But a dropped fly ball in the bottom half opened the floodgates as Blackburn pushed five unearned runs across the plate against Nelson (0-8). The game ended when Frey led off the bottom of the sixth with a solo blast, her team-leading sixth of the year.
In the suspended second game, junior Taylor Goudschaal gave Knox a 2-0 lead with a two-out, two-run single in the top of the first, scoring Nelson and junior Kylie Thomson who had both singled and advanced on a wild pitch. Mailee Schoen got one back in the second for the Beavers with a solo home run, but the Prairie Fire had runners at first and second with one down in the top of the third when the game was halted.
The Prairie Fire will open up Midwest Conference play on Saturday, April 5 by hosting Ripon College (2-14) in a doubleheader at Knox Softball Field at noon. The first of two games will begin at 1 p.m. and be streamed live through the official website of Knox Athletics, PrairieFire.Knox.edu.
