Box Score 1 | Box Score 2

WESTERVILLE, Ohio – The Otterbein softball team split a twinbill with Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) opponent Marietta on Friday afternoon, a game rescheduled from this past Wednesday due to inclement weather conditions.

The Cardinals (16-6 overall) move to 5-1 in league play as the Pioneers hand them their first loss in the early going of conference play. Otterbein will wrap-up its six games in three days slate tomorrow with a trip to Heidelberg for a first pitch time of game one set for 1 p.m.

Game One – Won, 12-3 (5inn.)

It was all Cardinals from the get-go as they totaled eight runs on as many hits after recording two outs in the bottom half of the first inning. Senior Bailey McElwain led off the scoring spree with a two-out single before classmate Megan Garner doubled followed by five other base hits.

The exclamation point on the inning for the Cards came off the bat of junior Alyson Shaw, who launched a three-run home run to right center which scored senior Savannah Sarkine and freshman Kristen Zink. The homer was Shaw's fourth of the season.

Marietta (10-12, 2-4 OAC) managed to get one run back the following frame on a solo home run off the bat of Jordan Pallay, but other than that junior starting pitcher Gabby Johnson earned her eighth win of the year in the circle while recording one strikeout through two innings.

Otterbein added four runs in the second inning on five hits, as senior Rachael Owens launched her first homer of the season, a three-run shot which scored freshman Katrina Wierzbicki and pinch-runner Kendall Lloyd.

Fellow junior Anna Edwards came on in relief to start the third inning and surrendered a pair of runs to the Pioneers to go with one strikeout, before giving way to sophomore Kasey Morris who finished off the final inning unscathed allowing just one hit while fanning a pair of batters.

Game Two – Lost, 4-0

The Cardinals were shutout for the first time this season and were in turn handed their first loss in conference play despite tallying eight hits against Pioneer starter Maddi Liston.

Liston was stellar at squandering several run-scoring opportunities for Otterbein, improving to 4-5 on the year behind a complete-game effort in which she only walked one batter and induced 13 fly outs and seven groundouts.

Marietta plated its first two runs of the game in the third inning after Owens tossed a scoreless first two innings of action, stringing together four hits in the frame to take the early advantage.

Two more scoreless innings passed before the Pioneers' Ally Prologo blasted a two-run home run over the left center field fence to boost their lead to 4-0.

Otterbein's biggest threat on the base paths came in the last half of the fifth inning when it loaded the bases on three-straight singles to start the frame, but Liston benefited from a pair of groundouts and a hard lineout from Wierzbicki to get out of the jam.

Owens, who had two hits in the game, moved to 5-3 on the year with the loss in the circle after going five and two-thirds innings, accountable for all four Marietta runs, while Morris pitched the remaining one and a third to close out the game.