Pride suffer pair of defeats in Heart opener against William Penn

OSKALOOSA, Iowa - Getting their first Heart games of the 2022 season under their belt, the Clarke University softball team dropped both ends of their doubleheader on Sunday afternoon to William Penn University by scores of 4-1 and 4-2 respectively.

The pair of games where runs were tight to come by saw multi-run innings carry the Statesmen to victory as they had a pair of two-run innings in game one to pull out the 4-1 win and a four-run inning in the finale pushed WPU over the top after Clarke had taken a 1-0 lead in the top half of the third.

In game one, only two of the four runs allowed by the Pride were earned as Malarie Huseman turned in a quality start of six innings with two earned runs allowed on five hits with two walks and a strikeout. Offensively, CU drove in their lone run with an RBI triple from Leah Gray in the fourth inning after going down 4-0 in the third but couldn't put across any other runs.

Game two's loss also saw a complete game from the starting pitcher as Aris Tyler also only allowed two earned runs of the four runs given up as the freshman finished with the exact same statline as Huseman in game one. Lily King and Abby Archer drove in the two Clarke runs as Archer went 2-for-2 with both hits being doubles and adding a walk on the day to reach base in all three of her plate appearances.

The Pride will head home to begin a 10-game homestand that's scheduled to begin this Tuesday when they host Culver-Stockton College at Veterans Park for a 1:00 p.m. CT start time for the doubleheader.