CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio — The Goshen College softball team is on its longest winning streak since 2001 as the team won its seventh straight game Sunday afternoon to cap an undefeated round-robin tournament at Ohio Christian University. The Maple Leafs topped OCU 6-3 and Lourdes 4-3 on Saturday to open the event before blanking Lourdes 13-0 and knocking off Ohio Christian 8-3 on Sunday.
Rianna Koteles led Goshen offensively in the event, posting team highs with 7 hits, 4 doubles and 6 runs batted in. Regan Sheipline scored 7 runs and Edith Vega and Jolie Groeneveld each added 5. Goshen scored 31 runs and stole 22 bases in the four games: Vega swiped 7 bags and Ellie Van Heerde added 6.
The Maple Leafs (10-4) allowed less than two earned runs per game in the pitching circle, led by Van Heerde's complete-game shutout Sunday against Lourdes. A different pitcher recorded the win in each game and Rayna Moraga also added a save while the other three contests were complete games. GC's pitchers scattered 21 hits in 25 innings and struck out 18 batters while holding opponents to a .236 batting average.
Goshen's winning streak is the second-longest in program history following a 14-game run in March and April 2001. Outside of that, the team's longest streaks are six games in 2000 and five in 2002; the 2002 team began the season with 10 straight victories, but five of those were against two-year colleges or foreign opponents that did not count for GC's record. The team also had a five-game winning streak in 2019.
GC's 10-4 record through 14 games is the third-best mark in team history: the 2001 team was 12-2 and its 2002 counterpart was 11-3 at the same point.
Saturday, game 1: Goshen 6, Ohio Christian 3
The Maple Leafs jumped in front three batters into the game on a Koteles double to score Vega and took the lead again in the third inning on a Bernadette Quintero single to score Sheipline. Vega took matters into her own hands in the fourth inning, plating Groeneveld on a base hit to go up 3-1.
Goshen added the first big inning of the weekend in the top of the sixth, when a walk and two steals set up a throwing error for the first run and Koteles doubled to drive in the final two.
Ohio Christian plated its last two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning on a single, a double and a sacrifice fly, but never brought the tying run to the plate against Mia Pawelski. The junior threw 109 pitches in the win, striking out 8 and allowing 8 hits.
Each of GC's top three hitters went 2 for 3 at the plate while Pawelski added a 3 for 4 showing.
Saturday, game 2: Goshen 4, Lourdes 3, 6 innings (dark)
After a hitless first two innings, Goshen pulled in front on a Koteles double to score Sheipline in the top of the third. A double steal prompted a throwing error to double the lead in the fourth inning before Kyra Wilson's triple and Bela Aros' sacrifice fly combined to double the lead again.
After mustering one hit in the first 3 2/3 innings, Lourdes got a pair of hits in the fourth and scored on an Ella Leonard double with nobody out in the fifth. The Gray Wolves added an unearned run after a single and two errors in the fifth inning before an infield single plated a second run to make it 4-3.
Following a walk to load the bases, Moraga struck out two batters to end the inning, as well as the game, which was called on account of darkness at 6:45 p.m. EST on the final day before the spring time change. She earned the save and Alisyn Catenacci got the win after throwing 5 1/3 innings with 2 earned runs and 7 hits.
On the offensive side of the ledger, GC got two hits from Koteles and one from Catenacci.
Sunday, game 1: Goshen 13, Lourdes 0, 5 innings (run rule)
Goshen broke the third game of the weekend open before Lourdes knew what had hit it: the Maple Leafs scored three times before their first hit and six before their first out thanks to errors, walks, stolen bases and wild pitches. Miranda Hipolito added a 3-run homer to make it 6-0 in the first inning and it was 10-0 before the first Maple Leaf made an out with the bat. The 10-run first inning marked the most by Goshen in any frame in at least 15 years, unseating a 9-run first inning against Stephens College on March 6, 2016.
That offense would have been enough to win the game by the run rule, but Van Heerde added an RBI single in the third inning and Pawelski laced a two-run single later in the inning. The sequential nature of the first-inning onslaught meant that no GC player got multiple hits, but Hipolito led the team with 3 RBIs and Pawelski and Quintero each had 2.
Van Heerde needed 72 pitches to vanquish the Gray Wolves (0-10), who mustered three singles and three walks in their five offensive innings.
Sunday, game 2: Goshen 8, Ohio Christian 3
Koteles doubled and Quintero singled to get GC on the scoreboard with two outs in the first inning only to watch the host Trailblazers (2-10) tie the score on a Kylee Bako double in the bottom of the frame. Goshen (10-4) laughed last, and best, when an Ashley Glazer double plated two runs with two outs in the second; Koteles added a single to make it 4-1 and the team never trailed again.
Another RBI double from Bako scored a run with two outs in the bottom of the third, but Groeneveld scored on a wild pitch in the top of the next inning and added a 2-run homer in the fifth for a 7-2 lead. Glazer's single up the middle put the Maple Leafs up 8-2 before OCU scored on an error in the bottom of the inning.
Moraga got the win in the finale, striking out 6 on 113 pitches while allowing 2 earned runs on 2 hits. Koteles was 3 for 4 while Groeneveld missed the cycle by a double. Glazer and Quintero had two hits apiece.
Bako's two doubles were the only hits of the day for Ohio Christian.
Up Next: Goshen hosts the first four games of its 36-game Crossroads League schedule this week at the John Ingold Athletic Complex, playing fifth-ranked Marian on Tuesday and 15th-ranked Indiana Wesleyan on Friday as the team gets into the teeth of the league right off the bat. Both twinbills begin at 3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
