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Game-1 Box Score
Game-2 Box Score

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – For the second straight game junior Raquel Howes broke a school record.  Howes set a new program mark for RBIs in a season as Eastern Kentucky University’s softball team swept East Tennessee State on Thursday.  The Colonels won game one 8-0 in five innings and picked up a 6-0 win in game two.

Eastern cruised to victory in game one.  Howes broke EKU’s single season record for RBIs when she drove in her 51st of the season on a single to center in the first inning.  This record was broken just one game after she set new marks for home runs in a season and homers in a career. 

A grand slam by Larkyn Wood in the third inning turned a 2-0 lead into a 6-0 advantage.  The lead reached 8-0 in the fourth when Nicole Heitz tripled with a runner on, and then scored on an ETSU throwing error.

Leanna Pittsenbarger (12-12) allowed two hits in five innings of shutout work.  She walked one and struck out eight.  The top three batters in the line-up each finished with two hits.  Diane Gallagher was 2-for-4 with two runs scored and a stolen base.  Heitz went 2-for-2 with a run and an RBI.  Howes finished with two hits in three at bats, scored twice and drove in one.  Wood was 1-for-2 with a run and five RBIs.

Christina Ciolek’s lead-off home run in the second inning got the Colonels (24-25) on the board in game two.  It was the sophomore’s first home run of the season.  Katie Tackett extended the lead to 4-0 with a three-run home run in the third inning, her 10th dinger of the season.

Tackett added a second homer in the seventh, this time a two-run shot to up her season total to 11.  She finished 3-for-4 with two runs and five RBIs.

Gallagher went 2-for-4 with two stolen bases.  Howes was 3-for-4 with two runs scored.  Pittsenbarger (13-12) came on in relief in the second and pitched the final five and two-thirds innings.  She gave up three hits, did not walk a batter and struck out six.

Seven different players had one hit each for East Tennessee (11-34).

The Colonels will be back in conference action on Saturday at Southern Illinois Edwardsville.  The doubleheader is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. ET.