In the battle of the two unbeatens in the SAC Tournament opening round, the Lincoln Memorial Railsplitters remained unblemished with a 10-5 win over the Bears. In the fourth game of the day at Bears Field, LMU used a seven-run 5th inning to move on to Saturday’s championship game of the pod. Lora Beth Wood and Talon LaClair hit home runs in the losing effort.

The Bears went 1-1 on the day and will face Catawba in an elimination game on Saturday. The winner will have to beat LMU twice to move on to the championship round. Game featured two rain delays with the first one twelve minutes then a sixty-eight minute delay in the 4th inning.

LR is now 63-43 all-time in the SAC Tournament. Bears jumped out to a 1-0 lead with Wood’s solo home run in the bottom of the 1st
Back to back extra base hits for LMU in the top of 2nd gave the Railsplitters a 3-1 lead.

After the second rain delay, the Bears tied it up with a pair of runs in the bottom of the 4th. RBIs by Blume and Rackard made it a new ball game at three each.

Lincoln Memorial then exploded for seven runs in the top of the 5th as LMU hit for the cycle in the inning with two singles, two doubles, a triple and a three-run homerun. LaClair did hit a two-run home run in the 7th but the deficit was too much to overcome as LMU takes the 10-5 win.

Morgan Beeler (21-4) suffered the loss in the circle, Beeler went 4 1/3 innings allowed five runs (two earned) while striking out a pair. Brooklin Heavner was first in relief but only threw 1/3 of a inning before Faith Carrigan finished the game going 2 1/3 innings allow two runs on just two hits.

Bears were held to six hits and LaClair was the only Bears with multi-hit game.

Mardigian saw her 13 game hitting streak snap with a 0-4 in the second game. LaClair did extend her hitting streak to eight games.

This was the first night came the Bears have loss since 2015, the Bears are now 12-1 in night games since the 2015 season.