CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Cleveland State softball team split its final regular season doubleheader on Saturday at UIC, winning game two, 3-2, in eight innings after falling in the opener, 8-7.
CSU finishes the regular season with a 23-27 overall record and an 8-12 mark in the Horizon League. UIC concluded the regular season at 23-20 overall and 14-6 in the league.
Cynthia Woodard provided the game-winning run in the nightcap, leading off the eighth inning with a home run to break a 2-2 tie. It was Woodard's league-leading 24th home run of the season, as well as her league-leading 50th RBI. She also finished the regular season with a league-best .434 batting average.
Susan Knight worked around a one out walk in the bottom of the eighth to finish off a complete game win. She gave us just two runs on nine hits and struck out two to move to 11-12 this season.
The Vikings took a 2-0 lead in the second inning of the nightcap as Alyson Broschk and Katelind Phillips drew back-to-back one out walks. After an Alisha Silva groundout advanced the runners to second and third, Hannah Yoe delivered a two-run single to give the Vikings the early lead.
UIC added runs in the third and fifth innings, forcing the game into extra innings where Woodard's homer gave the Vikings the win.
Seven different Vikings had one hit in game two.
In the opener, Broschk gave the Vikings a 2-0 lead with a two-run single in the first, but the Flames came back with five runs in the bottom half of the inning to take a 5-2 lead.
Broschk and Phillips had RBI in the third inning to bring CSU within 5-4, but the Flames responded with another run in the third to extend the lead to 6-4 and two more runs from UIC in the fourth gave the Flames an 8-4 lead.
CSU came right back in the fifth, using an RBI groundout by Yoe and a two-run single from Nena Doran to pull within 8-7, but CSU could not plate the tying run, as the Flames worked around a leadoff triple from Phillips in the seventh.
The Vikings will now await word on next week's Horizon League Championship, which is slated to begin on Wednesday.
