MOUNT VERNON – The Mount Vernon Nazarene University softball team (33-11, 23-9) has received votes in national polls, and the Lady Cougars stayed on course with a doubleheader sweep of Taylor University (21-22, 18-14) at Cougar Field on Tuesday, April 26, to maintain their hold on third place.
Entering Tuesday’s doubleheader, MVNU sat at third in the Crossroads League and was three games up on the visiting fourth-place Trojans. With the 3-2 and 9-1 wins, MVNU now holds a five-game lead over Taylor.
MVNU pulled off a comeback in Game 1. Trailing 2-0 entering the bottom of the seventh, the Lady Cougars' offense came to life. Kylee Matern laced an RBI-single to center to score Maddison Ruhl and get MVNU on the board. Trailing by one with two outs and runners on first and third, Mount Vernon HS grad Megan Pentz delivered in the clutch. Pentz stepped up to the plate and hit a blooper to left that scored another former Lady Jacket, Kaylee Myers, from third and Matern from first, giving MVNU the walk-off victory.
Macee Marcum put together another quality start in the circle for MVNU. The junior from Mount Vernon pitched the full seven innings. Marcum gave up 11 hits but minimized the damage by allowing only two runs and striking out five.
The Lady Cougars carried their momentum over to Game 2 of the series and used a big second inning to secure the game, scoring nine runs on 11 hits.
Sheridan Sullivan got the win for MVNU, allowing three hits and one earned run in five innings and struck out four.
