Truman State University’s softball team won both games Sunday in their home opening doubleheader against Saginaw Valley State University.
This is the first series the Bulldogs have won so far this season. The two victories give them a 6-4 record.
In the first game, the Bulldogs had a 3-run rally in the bottom of the seventh inning to force the home opener into extra innings. Then, in the bottom of the ninth, sophomore infielder Alyssa Rivera, who had scored the game-tying run in the seventh, hit a sac bunt that resulted in a throwing error from Saginaw Valley’s third baseman and a winning run home from junior outfielder Christa Reisinger.
The ’Dogs scored most of their runs of the second game in the first two innings, with two runs in the first from groundouts and one run in the second from a wild pitch. Saginaw Valley tied it up in the sixth, but then senior first baseman Ashley Murphy, who scored the Bulldogs’ first RBI of the game, singled on a sac bunt, and Rivera scored from third base to end the game.
Sophomore pitcher Alyssa Hajduk earned both wins of the doubleheader as a bullpen pitcher, throwing four-and-a-third innings and shutting out the Cardinals over the course of both games. Her season ERA is 2.62.
The softball team starts GLVC play at 2 p.m. Thursday at the University of Illinois Springfield.