ROSEMONT, Ill. – Amanda Ferguson homered and Courtney Raschk drove in three runs as the Roosevelt softball team held off a late Trinity International rally to hang on for a 9-8 victory at the Ballpark in Rosemont in the opener of Wednesday's doubleheader.
Eight of nine batters had at least a hit, including six with two knocks, to pace Roosevelt (11-22, 6-7 CCAC) to its fifth win in the last seven contests. Every hit off the bat of Ferguson (triple, homer) and Santora (triple, double) were of the extra-base variety.
Morgan Vogt won her ninth game of the season, fanning eight in another complete-game performance.
The Trojans (0-23, 0-9 CCAC) didn't look like a winless team in the early going, scoring twice with two outs in the first inning. Roosevelt responded in its half of the opening frame, as the Lakers took advantage of a dropped fly in left with two away thanks to Kristy Santora's RBI triple and Raschk's RBI single.
Trinity International tacked on an unearned tally in the top of the second to reclaim the lead, but the visitors' advantage was short-lived when the Lakers evened the game again in the bottom of that same inning on Vogt's RBI double.
Roosevelt took its first lead of the day when Sam Kusta scored on Priscilla Rios' two-out grounder to short, a ball that ended up being dropped by the first baseman to allow Kusta to cross the plate with the go-ahead run.
The Lakers' offense put up a three-spot in the fourth, as Ferguson led off with a triple and quickly came home on Vogt's RBI single. After Santora reached on an error, it was Raschk delivering a two-run double to right center that put Roosevelt ahead 7-3.
The two teams traded a pair of runs in the fifth to keep the Lakers up by four, and it seemed that Roosevelt was on its way to a four-run decision after Vogt retired the first two batters of the seventh. But Dani Donorovich homered to close the gap to three, and two more Trojan runs crossed the dish on Tara Faulkner's two-run double to bring the Roosevelt advantage down to a single run.
But that is all that Vogt would allow, as the Roosevelt hurler induced a game-ending groundout to Kusta at short.
