After their first 11 games of the season on the road, Coach Mackenzie Sher’s Southeastern softball team seemed plenty happy to be back in the comforts of home on Monday with a doubleheader sweep of Northeastern.
The Savage Storm rolled to a 9-1 runrule victory in the opening contest but needed some late-game heroics in game two for a 4-1 walk off triumph on Sage Harlow’s seventh inning home run.
After improving to 7-6 on the season, Southeastern will now begin Great American Conference play on Saturday at Henderson State.
In the Monday home opener, Sabetha Sands got the Savage Storm going with a leadoff double and eventually came around to score on a wild pitch for a 1-0 advantage.
The second stanza, however, proved to be decisive as the hosts sent 13 batters to the plate in the midst of plating eight runs for a commanding lead.
Laci Larsen and Sands each singled home a pair of runs to get the uprising started, but the big blow came with a Harlow two-run blast over the leftfield wall. Southeastern then greeted the Riv- erhawks’ relief pitcher with four consecutive hits, highlighted by a double from Iliana Olivares.
That was easily enough support for starting hurler Emily Simmons, who pitched five strong frames, yielding one run on three hits while striking out seven for the victory.
The Savage Storm compiled 12 hits led by two apiece from Sands, Harlow, Simmons and India McMurray. Olivares, Jazzy Rios, Larsen and Susan Edwards each posted one.
Game two was a bit more dramatic as it settled into a pitchers’ duel between Southeastern’s Trinity Oden and Northeastern’s Madison Heinle as each twirled four shutout frames before the Savage Storm cracked the scoreboard first in the fifth stanza.
Kennedy Morgan laced a two-out single up the middle and then scored all the way from first on a Sands double for a 1-0 edge.
That’s how it remained until the seventh when Northeastern strung together three of its five hits in the contest to tie the score.
Southeastern had the answer as Larsen singled to start the Savage Storm half of the frame and Sands’ two-out hit kept the rally going, setting the stage for Harlow’s game-winning blast.
Oden went the distance in the pitching circle, allowing a single run while scattering five hits. She fanned four and walked two.
Sands again led the offensive charge with two hits as Harlow, Rios, Larsen, Morgan and Brinly Burke contributed one apiece.