BLUFFTON, Ohio - The Bluffton University softball team dropped a pair of Heartland contests to visiting Manchester University on a cold Wednesday, April 9, 2025. The games were moved up from 3:30 p.m. to noon in an attempt to get in front of projected rain for tonight and it did the trick. Bluffton fell to 10-14 overall and 0-4 in the Heartland Conference, while Manchester upped its season mark to 11-5 with a spotless 2-0 start in the HCAC.
Manchester went up 1-0 in the top of the first in game one despite three strikeouts for freshman hurler Grace Gronberg (Danville). A passed ball, two stolen bases and a two-out RBI double put the Spartans on top.
Junior Kaylee Grant (Lima/Shawnee) singled and scored following a pair of Manchester miscues in the third, knotting it at 1-1.
A Bluffton error with two down in the top of the seventh allowed Manchester to go ahead 2-1, but Kayleigh Michael (Eaton/National Trail) smoked a one-out laser to center for her first homer of the season!
Two more Beaver errors in the top of the eighth made it 4-2 with the international tie-breaker in effect. Bluffton loaded the bases with one out, but a comebacker to the pitcher ended the game as the Spartans turned the 1-2-3 double play to nail down a two-run victory in the noon lidlifter.
Grant and Hammonds both rapped two hits in game one. Gronberg dropped to 4-7 after allowing four funs, but none earned, in eight innings with eight strikeouts and three walks.
The visitors scored two in the first and three in the second before Grant singled and came around to cross the dish, making it 5-1.
Manchester put up five unearned tallies in the fourth and was on the verge of a five-inning finish, but junior Riley Hammonds (Russia) picked up freshman Tianna Galbraith (Wayne/Elmwood) in the bottom of the fourth and the Beavers rallied for three more in the fifth, making it 10-5. Sophomore Taryn Hampton (Fostoria/Hopewell Louden) lifted a sacrifice fly to left to score Julia Tegeder (Hamilton), Halee McDade (Oxford/Talawanda) crossed the dish following a Manchester miscue and Hammonds drove in Galbraith for the second time in as many innings.
The comeback came to an end in the sixth when the Spartans dialed up three more runs for the 13-5 mercy-rule victory.
Hammonds continued to rake, going 3-of-4 which gave her five hits on the day. Tegeder and Hampton chipped in with two hits apiece. Hammonds and Tegeder both drove in two runs. Galbraith was a perfect 2-of-2 with two runs scored!
Hayley Lewis (Kettering/Fairmont) fell to 4-5 after surrendering 13 runs, five earned, on 15 hits with four walks.
The Beavers will travel to Rose-Hulman for another Heartland Conference double-dipper on Saturday, April 12, 2025. Game one is slated for 1 p.m.
-BEAVERS-