Pride earn second-straight split to start the season with finale win at St. Ambrose

DAVENPORT, Iowa - Making the hour drive down to the Quad Cities, the Clarke University softball team was able to earn a split of a doubleheader against St. Ambrose University on Sunday.

The Fighting Bees earned the win in the opener by a final of 9-2 before the Pride salvaged a win in the finale in a six-inning run rule final of 10-2 behind starting pitcher Malarie Huseman's second win to start the season.

Huseman allowed both runs of the unearned variety as she went for a complete game allowing six hits, three walks, and two hit batters to move to 2-0 in the early part of the season.

Clarke's offense scored in bunches as each of the innings CU put runners across home plate they score more than just one, including a big six-run fifth inning that was capped off by Kaylie Holtam's pseudo-inside the park home run on an RBI single up the middle that scored Jada Nanni as the ball was whiffed by the center fielder, allowing the freshman from Moline, Ill. to scoot around the bases and score.

Earlier in that six-run fifth, both Nanni and Abby Archer had their own two-RBI singles in the at bats right before Holtam's at bat and after there were already two outs in the inning.

That trio in the six, seven, and eight spots in the order, all had two hits and combined for six of the team's nine runs batted in for the game with Archer also driving in a run in the sixth inning for a 2-for-4 game with three RBis and a run scored.

That game-two win was a flip of the script from the doubleheader's opener as SAU was able to use a two-run first and five-run third to jump out 7-0 quickly against Calli Beck, who got the start in the circle. 

Offensively in the opener, the Pride couldn't string together anything to push more than one run across at a time as they got one in the fourth and one in the fifth.

That top of the fifth inning had the potential of a big inning with the bases loaded and one out before Holtam drove in CU's second run of the game but a baserunner got thrown out on that play then a runner was caught attempting to steal second on the next at bat to stall the inning out with just a single run.

Clarke softball will head back to the Packer Dome in Austin, Minn. for another neutral doubleheader, this time against Viterbo University on Feb. 25 for a 2:00 p.m. CT start for the first game.