A furious, late-season hot stretch came to a screeching halt for Allen Community College’s softball team Thursday.
The Red Devils, riding a season-best five-game winning streak, were swept by visiting Kansas City Kansas, 7-2 and 12-6, in ACC’s final home games of the season.
“It’s not at all how we wanted it to end,” head coach Nicole Peters said. “These were tough losses. We took ourselves out of those games. We had some miscues and errors, and we didn’t capitalize when we had baserunners.”
Four Red Devil errors paved the way for Kansas City’s early 4-0 lead in Game 1 against ACC starter Madelynn Collins.
Allen got on the board in the fifth when Bella Gravatt doubled and scored on a KCK error.
But the Blue Devils responded promptly, with three more in the top of the sixth to retake control.
Karly Stephens drove in Allen’s second run on an RBI grounder in the sixth.
Collins was the tough-luck loser, pitching into the sixth inning and allowing two earned runs with three strikeouts. She surrendered nine hits. Chloe Rogers came on in relief, allowing a hit and a strikeout.
Gravatt and Hailee Lundine both had doubles to lead the ACC attack. Alayna Brown, Stephens and Makayla Howard had singles.
KANSAS CITY broke out of the gates quickly in the finale, but Allen had some offense of its own in response.
After KCK took a 3-0 lead, Allen’s Aubrey Willis singled and scored on a Blue Devil error.
The lead was 4-1 when Andrea Wilson deposited a 1-2 pitch over the left field fence for Allen’s second run in the bottom of the second.
Lundine got into the act in the third, blasting a two-run home run to center, cutting KCK’s lead to 5-4. Mikayla Long doubled and scored two batters later on Gravatt’s RBI single to tie the score.
But back-to-back home runs from Kansas City’s Bradi Basler and Alexis Rymer gave the Blue Devils the lead for good in the fourth. Basler tacked on another home run in the fifth — her third of the day — to make it 10-5, before a pair of ACC errors extended the lead to seven.
Gravatt singled and scored on Kobe McDonald’s ground ball in the sixth to end the scoring.
Cynae Wiley took the loss. She struck out four, while allowing 13 hits.Kaylee Kornell gave up four hits with a strikeout in relief.
