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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
NORTHERN ILLINOIS
Softball Falls To Northern Illinois, 2-1
May 10, 2001 | Softball
May 10, 2001
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - Suzie Rizek's sixth-inning homerun lifted Northern Illinois University to a 2-1 win over the Bowling Green State University softball team. The Mid-American Conference Tournament game was held at the CMU Softball Complex.
With the loss, the Falcons (34-18) will play an elimination game against Ohio Friday (May 11) at 10:00 a.m. NIU, the sixth-seed for the double-elimination tournament, improves to 20-33 after winning for the second time on Thursday.
NIU's Jolene Heller earned the win, allowing just one run on three hits in her five innings of work. Heller improved to 3-8 on the year.
The Huskies got on the scoreboard quickly, with a run in the top of the first inning. Kelly Redican began the game with a single up the middle off sophomore McKenna Houle. Redican took second on a wild pitch, went to third on a Megan Meyer groundout, and scored on a bouncer off the bat of Samantha Knoll. Knoll's hit bounded high, ticking off the glove of leaping BGSU third baseman Lynsey Ebel, for an infield hit that plated Redican.
The Falcons got on the board in the second inning. Senior Angie Domschot hit Heller's first pitch of the inning off the very top of the wall in centerfield for a double. Domschot took third on Ebel's sacrifice bunt, as Ebel nearly beat the throw to first. Then, sophomore Libby Voshell ripped a double that bounced on the warning track in left, with Domschot scoring easily.
From that point, Heller and Houle each pitched effectively. Houle, who got 15 ground-ball outs in her sixth innings of work, allowed just one hit after the second inning. That hit, however, came off the bat of Rizek, and went over the wall in center on a 3-1 pitch. The homer was Rizek's third of the year.
The Falcons got a leadoff walk by senior Jen Domschot in the sixth, her second of the game and her school-record 30th of the season. NIU senior Courtney Witvliet came on in relief of Heller, however, and fanned both junior Renee Rosemeier and Angie Domschot on three pitches each. Witvliet then got Ebel to foul out to first base.
BGSU junior Jessie Milosek relieved Houle and set the Huskies down in the seventh, allowing one hit. The Falcons, however, went out in order in the bottom of the seventh.
The Huskies advance to play the winner of the Kent State-Central Michigan game, the final game of Thursday (May 10).
The second-seeded Falcons face #5 Ohio, a 5-4 loser to KSU earlier in the day. In the tournament's first game Thursday morning, NIU had downed Ball State by a 10-5 count to earn the right to face the Brown and Orange.
