CLERMONT, Fla. – The Carthage College softball team returned to action Tuesday, March 22nd at the 2016 Spring Games at the National Training Center – Legends Way Ballfields with the Lady Reds going 1-1 on the day.
 
The Lady Reds opened the day with a 6-4 win over Buena Vista University in game one, before dropping the second game, 9-3, to Fontbonne University. 
 
Katie Herron, making her fourth start of the season, cruised through the first six innings before the Beavers were able to knock her out with one out in the sixth, only to have Darian Pelsor replace Herron and retire the two batters she faced for her first save of the season.  Herron, who picked up her the win and is now 3-1 in 2016, struck out a season high 14 batters in 6.1 innings, while allowing four runs on four hits while walking six.
 
"Katie has pitched very well so far this year," opened head coach Amy Gillmore following the day's action.  "We would like to get her to reduce the number of walks however.  She has been dominant early but against some of our top conference teams when we get to the CCIW, those will be taken advantage of and can hurt us.  But hopefully we can put teams away just a little more so that we won't have to worry about it in the later innings."
 
Offensively, Hailey Rothstein put the Lady Reds on the board in the first as a two-out single scored Kristine Herdegen for the early lead.
 
In the fourth, Pelsor delivered another big blow when she laced her first triple of the year into the  right field corner, driving in Rothstein and Herdegen to take a 3-0 lead.  An unearned run added a third run in the inning off the bat of Makenzie Walker, scoring Abby Thompson.
 
Abby Thompson then delivered what proved to be the most important hit of the game, crushing a two-run homerun, her team-leading second of the season, over the left field wall to put the Lady Reds ahead 6-0 in the sixth.
 
Fontbonne delivered a dose of Carthage's own medicine to the Lady Reds, jumping out to an early lead of their own as the Griffins took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first on a homerun to center field off of Amy Goldsmith.
 
The Lady Reds tied the game at 1-1 without managing a hit as Aileen Szczepanski was hit by a pitch, stole second, advanced to third on an Abby Thompson put out, then scored on a wild pitch.
 
Unfortunately for the Lady Reds, Fontbonne's Madi Leonard was locked in and struck out ten while allowing three earned runs, only one of which was earned, while limiting Carthage to just two hits in the game.
 
Gillmore noted on the loss, "There is nothing good to say about game two.  We were bad all around.  Offense.  Defense.  Errors.  Miscommunication.  We need to get this out of our system no because it was just a bad game all the way around."
 
After Fontbonne had taken a 6-1 lead in the fourth, the Lady Reds looked as though they were going to make a comeback in the fifth.  Carthage used five errors in the inning to score two runs, however a strike out ended the Lady Reds threat at a comeback as the Griffins added three more runs in the seventh.
 
Carthage, now 5-3 on the season, will conclude their spring break trip in Florida on Wednesday with their final two games in Clermont against MIT at 11:00 AM and Centre College at 1:00 PM.