Hill belts two homers to lead Storm on Thursday

CLERMONT, Fla. – Karlie Hill belted two home runs to lead the Simpson College softball team to a split on Thursday at The Spring Games. Simpson dropped a tight 1-0 battle to Wheaton but bounced back with an 8-4 win over Hamline.

The Storm (9-3) have added a third game to their Friday schedule and will now face Rhodes at 5:30 p.m. following their matchups with Carthage (8 a.m.) and Salem St. (1:30 p.m.).

Game 1: Wheaton 1, Simpson 0
The Storm's first game was a pitcher's duel between Taryan Barrick-Wessels and Wheaton's Sophia Knopf. After four scoreless innings where the teams combined for just five hits, the Lyons (4-4) took advantage of two Simpson errors for a 1-0 lead in the top of the fifth.

The Storm put themselves in position to tie the game in the home half, but came up empty. Barrick-Wessels opened the inning with a single to left and advanced to third on a wild pitch and sacrifice bunt by Molly Platte. A flyout to left put two outs on the board, and Knopf's fourth strikeout of the game left the junior stranded. Simpson managed just one more baserunner the rest of the way.

Game 2: Simpson 8, Hamline 4
The Storm claimed an early 5-0 lead thanks to two home runs from Hill and another from Alexis Ehlers. Hill launched a leadoff homer in the second inning and Ehlers decided to do the same in the third as the freshman sent one over the left center field fence for her first career long ball.

Hill followed with a three-run blast five batters later and Simpson kept the scoring going with three more runs for an 8-0 advantage. The Pipers (3-4) scored two on an error in the fourth and added a round tripper of their own in the fifth.