Ashland University's softball team enjoyed finally coming back to Deb Miller Field at the Archer Ballpark Complex on Saturday (April 12) afternoon so much that they wanted to keep playing after seven innings – twice.
The Eagles continued their recent surge on Saturday, winning 1-0 and 2-1 – both in eight innings – over Malone at home. Ashland improves to 22-10 overall and 12-2 in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference, having won 14 of the last 16 games. The Pioneers are 18-12, 6-8.
Saturday's contests were just the fifth and sixth for AU at home in 2025 – as well as Senior Day.
"We have been traveling the majority of this year," said Ashland head coach
Jackie Price, "so it's good to be back on our home turf.
"The biggest thing is that, in the big moments, we're having players step up and get it done, which is really good to see. It's not the same people every time, so that helps."
The Eagles' 22 wins are the program's most in a season in six years (33 in 2019).
Game 1 featured a pitchers' dual between Ashland junior
Delaney Lis and Malone's Mia Rose. Lis (11-3) went all eight innings, twirling a four-hit shutout with eight strikeouts and one walk. Rose struck out 11 and gave up seven hits, a run and a walk.
In the bottom of the eighth, sophomore
Delaney Keith capped off a 3-for-4 showing with the game-winning RBI single.
"Right now, this is one of the best feelings a lot of these girls have felt in a really long time," Keith said. "Everyone's hungry to win. We're all in for the same goal. We're all just ready to keep winning."
Keith delivered the first run of Saturday's nightcap, a two-out RBI single. Malone posted its first run of the afternoon in the fourth to knot the contest at 1.
Fast-forward to the bottom of the eighth again, and the Eagles won when, following a fly out, sophomore right fielder
Delaney Maynard scored on Malone's fourth error of the contest.
MORE QUALITY AU PITCHING…AND THE REST OF THE STORY
- In Game 2, senior Cassidy Shaffer (6-0) pitched the last two innings scoreless to get the win, following senior Bryn Grabowski's six innings of three-hit, one-run, one-walk, three-strikeout ball.
- "They are coming out and they are owning the mound, and we love to see it," Price said of Lis, Shaffer and Grabowski. "I can't say enough about the pitching today."
- Said Keith, "They're tough to beat. They've worked so hard, and they've earned it."
- Junior second baseman Danielle Robbins' two stolen bases in Game 2 give her 61 as an Eagle – two away from tying Sunny Litteral's career program mark of 63.
UP NEXT
Ashland will stay at home on Sunday (April 13) at noon to take on Ursuline (4-22, 1-9) in the program's Morgan's Message games.
