TOPEKA, Kan. - The Lincoln University softball team came out on the losing end of two games with Emporia State University on Saturday, falling in very different ways.
In the opening game, the Lady Hornets won by run rule, dropping the Blue Tigers 8-0 in five innings.
Lincoln managed just three hits in the defeat - singles by Haley Bartow, Shantae Duren and Brianna Akers.
Jessica Thomsen (1-2) started and took the loss, giving up five earned runs on six hits in four innings of work. Kristina Hein worked just 1/3 of an inning before the game ended, allowing three runs (two earned) on two hits.
In the second game, the Hornets pushed across a run in the bottom of the eight to escape with a 5-4 victory.
Emporia State scored a single run in the first and third innings and then two in the sixth to go up 4-0.
The Blue Tigers rallied with four runs in the top of the seventh to tie it. Duren rapped a two-run double, Sam Kircher smacked an RBI single and Bartow drove in the tying run with a sacrifice fly.
But in the eighth, Emporia State got a single, a stolen base and two more singles to end it.
No Lincoln player had more than one hit, as the Blue Tigers got outhit 11-5.
Clair Lorenz (7-3) went the whole way for the Blue Tigers in the circle. Only four of the runs were earned and she struck out one.
Both of the games were played on the campus of Washburn University when rains rendered the field at Emporia State unplayable.
Lincoln is now 10-9-1 overall and 2-4 in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, while Emporia State is 21-8 and 8-2.
The Blue Tigers will host Truman State in a doubleheader starting at 4 p.m. Wednesday at Binder Park.