HELENA, Mont. - The Carroll College Softball team wrapped up a highly-successful home opening weekend with a pair of walk-off wins to cap a weekend sweep of Bushnell on Saturday at Centennial Park.

The Fighting Saints (7-12-1, 3-5) provided the home crowd with not one, but two going-away wins over the Beacons (6-17, 1-8) on a bluebird day in the Capital City.

GAME ONE:
A pitcher's duel through three innings gave way in favor of the Beacons in the top half of the fourth inning. With one out, and runners on the corners, the Bushnell batter popped one foul down the first base side. Victoria Richardson tagged, raced home, and beat the throw to the plate to steal the game's fist run and put BU on top 1-0.

A promising bottom half of the fourth would yield no runs for the Saints as Carroll would strand three with a prime opportunity to tie the game. Two quick innings later, the Saints made their move.

A pair of Bushnell errors would lead to the game tying run with just one out in the bottom of the seventh. Some heady base-running by Liz Ybarra (Fullerton, Calif. / FR), avoiding a tag between second and third, forced an hurried throw allowing for the equalizer.

Morgan Sunchild (Great Falls, Mont. / SO) was the hero in the morning game. Her bloop shot into right field found grass in front of the fielder and her walk-off RBi single would give Carroll the CCC sweep.

Kennedy Venner (Billings, Mont. / SO) had another good day striking out nine batters in a complete game effort for her third win of the year.

GAME TWO:
The non-conference final game of the weekend featured plenty of pop from the Carroll bats.

Kenna Thomas (Belgrade, Mont. / JR) started things off with a bang, blasting a solo shot to left-center to open the scoring in the top of the first. Sammie Labrum (Kalispell, Mont. / SO) added an RBI single, and Carlee Smith (Blackfoot, Idaho / FR) followed it up with a two-run double to give the Saints a 4-0 lead after one.

The Beacons got one back in the fourth inning on a sharp RBI single from Hannah Tennant to trim the lead to 4-1.

Sammie Labrum answered quickly, picking up a solo homer that hit the top of the fence before finally falling beyond the wall, stretching the lead back to four. Morgan Sunchild got in on the four-bag party in the fifth, hitting the Saints' third solo homer of the afternoon and setting the stage for the game's finale.

With the bases loaded, Bella Bombach (Snohomish, Wash. / FR) put and end to the weekend series with a tailing shot into the right-center gap that would score three and give Carroll a mercy rule win, 9-1.

Abbie Amend (Spokane, Wash. / SO) had her best outing of the season, striking out nine in the get-right game for Carroll.

Another long trip to Oregon awaits the Saints this week as they prepare to head out to Salem for a four-game series at Corban on Friday and Saturday.

Visit www.carrollathletics.com for a preview of those games and to stay up to date with everything going on in Carroll Athletics.