ASHLAND, Ore. - The Carroll College Softball team dropped a pair of games on Saturday afternoon at No. 8 Southern Oregon, ending a two month long road swing to start the season.

The Fighting Saints (3-12-1, 0-5) had a frustrating lack of offense in their weekend series with one of the NAIA's top ranked teams, dropping back-to-back games for the second time in as many days.

GAME ONE
After a scoreless first, the Raiders opened the scoring in the bottom of the second. An error led to the game's first run, followed by an RBI double, then RBI triple to give SOU a 3-0 lead through two.

Ellie Koerber (Billings, Mont. / JR) continued her good start to the year, she responded in the top of the next inning with an RBI double of her own to bring the score to 3-1. Unfortunately, no more runs would follow.

SOU added four runs in the bottom of the third, and an insurance run in the fourth inning to bring the score to 8-1. A three-up, three-down fifth inning would end the Saints attempt at the comeback, and the Raiders would close out the final conference game of the series.

Carroll went 6-22 from the plate, while SOU finished with 11 hits on 24 attempts.

GAME TWO
The Saints had their best hitting game of the weekend in the final game of the series, but their eight hit effort would yield no runs .

Carroll went 8-29 as a team with only two strikeouts in the game, but left 10 runners stranded on base in the frustrating fourth loss of the weekend. In both the first and fifth frames, Carroll left the bases loaded with no runs to show for.

The odd innings favored the Raiders, as they scored one on a fielding error in the first, three runs in the bottom of the third, and a final run in the fifth inning en route to their 5-0 shutout victory.

Alyssa Lybbert (Las Vegas, Nev. / JR) was the bright spot in the Saints lineup, finishing the game 3-3.

Carroll will now finally get their first opportunity to play on their home field, welcoming Bushnell to town on for a Friday-Saturday series next week at Centennial Park.

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