A home split on the softball diamond leaves Allen Community College in line for a playoff berth.
The Red Devils thumped visiting Labette 7-3 in their doubleheader opener. But the Cardinals jumped ahead in Game 2 and didn’t look back in a 6-1 victory.
“A split is good, but we wanted more,” Red Devil head coach Nicole Peters said.
Allen, which stands at 9-9 in Jayhawk Conference play, remains in sixth place in conference standings, with the top eight teams moving on to next week’s Region VI Tournament in Topeka.
Allen hosted Hesston to wrap up the regular season Wednesday, but those games were not complete by press deadline.
Things started well enough on Tuesday, with Allen erupting for six runs in the bottom of the second against Labette pitcher Jaelah McDannald.
Bailee Campbell got it started with an RBI single, but the big blow was Hayley Gerberding’s bases-loaded double, making it 4-0. Jena Hendrix added a run-scoring single and the final run of the inning came on Calyn Michaelis’s double-play ground ball.
A pair of Allen fielding errors allowed Labette to close the gap to 6-3 after 3½ innings before the Red Devils’ Camrynn Yardley took matters into her own hands to seal the win.
Yardley’s two-out double drove in Allen’s final run of the game in the bottom of the fourth in support of her dazzling pitching performance.
Yardley pitched all seven innings, allowing three hits and no earned runs, striking out six in the process.
Gerberding had a single and double with three RBIs. Michaelis, Jena Hendrix and Madisyn Havenstein each had a pair of singles. Yardley had Allen’s other double. 
A DROPPED third strike with a runner on third in the second inning allowed Labette to jump ahead 1-0 in Game 2 before the Cardinals utilized a steal of home in the third to lead 2-0.
Labette took full control in the fourth after the first five batters reached base, bumping the lead to 5-0.
Campbell’s two-out double in the bottom of the fifth accounted for Allen’s only run.
“We hit well in the first game, but we didn’t make the adjustments we needed for Game 2,” Peters said.
