April 26, 2008

Game one
Game two

LOGAN, Utah -- Northern Colorado's softball team scored a lot late in its first-game loss to Utah State on Saturday afternoon.

And then the Bears just scored a lot period in their second-game win against the Aggies at Johnson Field.

The teams were scoreless in the first game until Utah State pushed across single runs in the fourth and fifth innings before plating five more in the sixth on its way to a 7-4 victory. Northern Colorado scored one run in the sixth and its final three in the seventh in the loss.

But the Bears scored early and often in a 7-6 extra-innings win in the second game of the doubleheader, highlighted by Jessie Schoepflin's three-for-five performance at the plate and Hillarie Van Otterloo's team-leading fifth home run to left center.

Van Otterloo scored the winning run in the contest when, after she was placed on second because of the NCAA softball tiebreaker rule, she scored on a single from Morgan Dahlman.

Kelli Henderson started in the circle for Northern Colorado (12-33) in the victory, but she wasn't able to pick up the win. The Bears scored the winning run in the seventh inning, giving Jamie Juelfs (5-12), who came on in relief, her fifth victory of the year.

Van Otterloo (5-12) started in the circle in the game-one defeat, and she was solid for for five innings. But Utah State (13-28) got to her in the sixth, and it was too much for Northern Colorado to overcome.

The teams will play two more tomorrow, Sunday, April 27, at Utah State's Johnson Field.