McMINNVILLE, Ore. –
Shelby Saylors pitched a statistically perfect game in the opener and
Tanna Benson tossed a nine-inning shutout in the nightcap, as the Linfield Wildcats completed a four-game series sweep of the Lewis & Clark Pioneers Monday night at Del Smith Stadium.
Eighth-ranked Linfield needed just one win on Monday to clinch the Northwest Conference championship outright. The Wildcats secured the program's second consecutive and 14th NWC overall crown. Linfield had already sewn up home-field advantage in this week's NWC Tournament, which begins a three-day run in McMinnville on Friday.
The Wildcats (32-5-1, 25-2 NWC) defeated the Pioneers 9-0 in a game that began Friday but was halted by rain in the middle of the second inning. Play resumed Monday but was ultimately ended after five innings by the eight-run rule. The nightcap turned out much closer, with Lewis & Clark extending Linfield into extra innings before the Wildcats won it in the ninth inning on a close play at the plate.
Lewis & Clark ended its season at 12-26 and 7-21 in NWC play.
GAME 1: Linfield 9, Lewis & Clark 0
Saylors didn't yield a walk nor a hit to the Pioneers in recording her fourth shutout and 17th pitching win of the season.
Fittingly, Saylors ended the game with a strikeout, one of three by the senior righthander in the game.
Kelsey Wilkinson went 2 for 3 and scored twice to carry the Wildcats at the plate.
As the game began on Friday, the Wildcats loaded the bases in the top of the first inning, setting the table for a RBI single to right-center field by
Makenna Clizer. An illegal pitch pushed the Wildcats' lead to 2-0 before
Chelsea Horita made it 4-0 with a two-run line drive to left field.
As action resumed on Monday, the Wildcats used the long ball to add to their run total. In the fourth inning,
Paige Smotherman blasted her 10th home run of the season over the left-field wall, and
Kelsey Wilkinson followed shortly after with her fourth round-tripper, a three-run bomb that sailed out down the left-field line and pushed the score to 9-0.
GAME 2: Linfield 1, Lewis & Clark 0, 9 innings
L&C's Emily Drevdahl and Linfield's
Tanna Benson waged an old-fashioned pitchers' duel. The game remained scoreless until Horita laid down a suicide squeeze bunt to halt the game in the ninth inning.
Benson raised her season record in the pitching circle to improve to 14-1. She struck out three Pioneers and allowed six hits without a surrendering a walk.
In the bottom of the seventh,
Abi Proffitt led off with a single and moved to second on a sacrifice by Horita. A ground out by Smotherman moved Proffitt to third base. But with a chance to end the game, Clizer popped out to force extra innings.
L&C put a runner in scoring position in the eighth, but Lily Moffitt's fly ball to center field was caught by
Katie Phillips for the third out.
In the Linfield ninth,
Darian Stedman doubled to lead off the inning, then scooted to third on a grounder by Proffitt. That set the stage for Horita's game-winning suicide squeeze bunt.
Proffitt had three hits in four trips to the plate while Stedman had a pair of base hits as Linfield outhit Lewis & Clark 7-6.
Drevdahl took the loss to fall to 2-7. Sydney Cross had two of the Pioneers' six hits.
The extended nightcap marked just the second time this spring that the Wildcats were forced to play extra innings, the other coming in a 7-7 tie with Pomona-Pitzer on Feb. 22.
Next
Linfield will play Whitworth Wednesday at 5 p.m. in a continuation of a game suspended by rain on April 7.
