YSU softball team extends winning streak to nine

Penguins club four home runs to beat IUPUI

Staff report

Indianapolis

The Youngstown State softball team smashed four home runs en route to its ninth straight win with a 6-3 victory over IUPUI on Friday afternoon at the IUPUI Softball Complex.

The nine straight wins are tied for the second-longest streak in school history and marks the third straight season YSU has won at least nine consecutive games. The four home runs mark just the ninth time in school history the Penguins have hit at least four home runs in a game.

Junior Maddi Lusk went 3 for 4 with two solo home runs while freshman Grace Cea hit a three-run home run and junior Elizabeth Birkbeck belted a solo shot.

Freshman Addy Jarvis won her eighth game of the season with a complete-game five-hitter and nine strikeouts.

Cea’s three-run home run in the top of the seventh broke a 3-3 tie and sealed the game for the Penguins (13-17, 4-0 Horizon League). Senior Dani Dadig led off the inning with a double down the left-field line and advanced to third on sacrifice bunt by Yazmine Romero. After a bunt single by Lexi Zappitelli, Cea drove the first pitch she saw over the right-center field fence.

Birkbeck hit the first of seven combined home runs with a solo shot to left-center in the top of the second, and Lusk led off the top of the fourth with her first solo blast of the game to give YSU a 2-0 lead.

IUPUI’s Mackenzie Loge cut the lead in half with a solo home run in the bottom half of the inning before Lusk hit her second home run of the game in the top of the sixth to extend the Penguins advantage to 3-1.

The Jaguars (9-23, 3-1) tied the game at 3-3 with a pair of solo home runs in the bottom of the sixth before Cea’s seventh-inning heroics.

The Penguins and Jaguars close out the series with a doubleheader, Sunday, March 31. First pitch is slated for 1 p.m.