BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The No. 11-ranked Illinois Wesleyan softball team used the long ball, hitting three home runs to propel themselves to a doubleheader sweep of Wheaton by scores of 3-2 and 7-2 at IWU Field on Tuesday, April 28.
The two wins gives IWU their second consecutive College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin regular season championship and 16th overall championship in the sport and the Titans will host the conference tournament on Thursday and Friday at IWU Field.
Go here for the CCIW Softball Championship web page.
With nine straight wins, IWU is now 33-7 and 12-2 in the CCIW while Wheaton slipped to 23-14 and 11-3 in the conference.
Senior centerfielder
Hannah Bowen put the Titans on the board in the bottom of the first inning in game one with a solo home run to right center field to give IWU a 1-0 lead. The Thunder responded with a two-run home run in the top of the fourth to take a 2-1 lead before a
Danielle Smith groundout to second base brought home Bowen in the fifth to tie the game at two.
With the score tied at 2-2 with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, Smith provided the heroics in walk-off fashion with a smashing home run off the scoreboard in left field to propel the Titans to a 3-2 win and force a winner take-all championship game two.
Junior
Jenna Noland shut down Wheaton in the circle, giving up only two runs on four hits and striking out a season-high 14 batters including the first five of the game.
The Illinois Wesleyan bats got going in game two as the Titans erupted for five fifth-inning runs with the big blast coming from junior
Mary Rankin. After a Smith two-RBI single that brought home Bowen and junior shortstop
Sam Gudat, Rankin smacked a hit off the top of and over the left field fence for a three-run home run.
Wheaton cut the IWU lead to 5-2 in the bottom half of the fourth inning before the Titans responded with two insurance runs of their own to run away with the CCIW title.
Senior
Chloe Montgomery picked up her 17
th win of the season by throwing a complete-game and giving up two runs while striking out five.
TITAN NOTES: IWU has won 30 games for the fourth straight year and for the 14th
time in the last 16 seasons … IWU has won or shared 16 CCIW softball titles including this year. The previous conference titles were in 1991, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, and 2014.
What's Next?Illinois Wesleyan will host the double-elimination CCIW tournament starting Thursday at noon at IWU Field. Game one will feature No. 3-seed Wheaton vs. No. 2-seed North Central while the No. 1-seed Titans will take on No. 4-seed Augustana at 2 p.m. The losers of games one and two will meet at 4 p.m. in an elimination game while the winners will meet at 6 p.m. ... Play will conclude on Friday with the first game getting underway at 10 a.m.
