The Lady Cougars hosted the University of Saint Francis (USF) on Saturday for their third straight home double-header.  After defeating Goshen College on Thursday, the Lady Cougars were unable to carry the momentum into Saturday’s games losing both games 10-6 and 18-9.

April Patnaude and Kaitlyn Sinclair teamed up to pitch the first game. Patnaude gave up eight runs on nine hits. Sinclair had two runs on six hits.

Saint Francis showed up ready to play, scoring three runs in the first, five in the second and one in the fourth and fifth innings to lead Spring Arbor 10-4 after five innings.

The Lady Cougars attempted to recover from USF’s strong offense scoring runs in the first, third and sixth innings. They had eight hits in the game but that was not enough to earn the win.

Bekah Guy batted in two runs on a single to left-center field, Tori Fite and Patnaude came around to score in the first inning.

In the third inning after a Taylor Scott double and Fite single, USF would commit their second error of the game allowing Scott to score. Fite headed home on groundout by Amanda Youngheim. A t this point, USF was leading the Lady Cougars 8-4.

Spring Arbor attempted a comeback in the sixth inning as Beka Bentz and Kaitlyn Sinclair each scored, but SAU couldn’t sustain the rally and that would complete the scoring in the game with the score in Saint Francis’ favor 10-6.

Offensively, Spring Arbor did everything they could to win the game.  The Cougars scored nine runs on 14 hits, but Saint Francis put up 18 runs on 22 hits, including eight runs in the top of the seventh inning to put the game out of reach for Spring Arbor.

Saint Francis was also aided by six Spring Arbor errors in game two alone.

The Lady Cougars fall to 9-17, and 2-4 in the CL and will host Lourdes University on Tuesday April 9 for a nonconference matchup. Game one begins at 3:30 p.m. Spring Arbor will be on the road on April 11 to face Bethel College.

[WRITER’S NOTE: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON WWW.SAUCOUGARS.COM]