Game 1 Box Score I Game 2 Box Score

RICHMOND, Ky. – The Eastern Kentucky University softball team swept a doubleheader from visiting UT Martin on Saturday at Gertrude Hood Field, defeating the Skyhawks by scores of 8-7 and 11-2.
 
With the wins, EKU (27-14) improves to 9-1 in OVC play and moves atop the conference standings.
 
Game one saw UT Martin (22-26, 6-10 OVC) grab an early 1-0 lead. However, Eastern responded with five runs in the home half of the first.
 
Destinee Lizzmore ignited the rally with a base hit, and then stole second. After Johnkyria Alston walked, Hannah Clark laced a single into right field, scoring Lizzmore and putting Alston at third. The next batter, Zoe Mihalicz, roped a base hit down the right field line, plating Alston and advancing Clark to third. Emily Corbitt then walked to load the bases for Carly Robinson, who delivered a two-run single through the right side of the infield. Brooke Harrison capped the big inning by scoring Corbitt on a sacrifice bunt.
 
After UTM got a run back in the top of the second, Harrison responded with a two-out, two-run single into center field that scored Mihalicz and Clark and gave the Colonels a 7-2 lead in the bottom of the third.
 
UT Martin was not finished, though. The Skyhawks got three runs back in the fourth. After Alston blasted a solo home run in the home half of the fourth, the visitors pushed two more across in the top of the sixth to pull to within one of the Colonels, 8-7.
 
Peyton Hutchens, however, entered the circle late in the sixth inning and shut the door on the Skyhawks in the seventh to earn her second save of the season.
 
Murphy McRoberts (8-4) picked up the win for EKU.
 
Clark and Mihalicz both finished game one 2-for-3 with two runs scored and an RBI.
 
The EKU bats really came to life in game two, especially senior leader Paige Murphy. Murphy finished game two with a pair of home runs and five RBI.
 
As in game one, UT Martin jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead in the top of the first. Murphy knotted it up with a two-run opposite field blast in the bottom of the inning that scored Lizzmore.
 
Robinson gave EKU the lead in the home half of the second when she belted an RBI double off the wall in left center, scoring Corbitt.
 
The score remained 3-2 until the fifth inning, when EKU put its foot on the gas. Lizzmore led off the inning with a solo home run. Murphy followed that up by doubling off the wall in left center and scoring on an RBI groundout by Alston. The next batter, Clark, singled down the right field line and then stole second. After Corbitt walked, Robinson crushed a three-run home run off the Colonels' new hitting facility in left center field to make the score 8-2.
 
Murphy ended it early with a walk-off three-run shot to dead center field in the bottom of the sixth that made it 11-2.
 
Murphy finished 3-for-4 with five RBI and three runs scored. Robinson went 2-for-3 with four RBI and a run scored. The freshman drove in six runs, total, on the day.
 
Mollie Paulick (11-5) earned the win in game two, pitching 4.2 scoreless innings of relief and allowing only two hits.
 
EKU returns to action on Sunday when the Colonels host Southeast Missouri in a doubleheader starting at 1:00 p.m.