Contact: Alan Ashby

April 6, 2006

Game One Final Stats | Game Two Final Stats

NIAGARA UNIVERSITY, N.Y. - Cleveland State and Niagara split a pair of games on Thursday afternoon in non-league action at Niagara Field. The Purple Eagles (16-8) claimed game one, 3-2, on a walk-off home run, before the Vikings (17-6) posted a 9-0 rout in the nightcap.

In the first game, Niagara scored first in the bottom of the second inning, when Ashley Bognar hit her second home run of the season to right centerfield.

CSU tied the game in the top of the third when Shannon Graves got on with a bunt single, stole second and scored on a Michele Penney double to left centerfield.

The Purple Eagles took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the third and held the advantage until the top of the sixth. Penney doubled to right centerfield, stole third and scored the tying run on a double to left field by Kaitlin Guyette.

In the bottom of the seventh, Jennifer Yee capped off a perfect day at the plate (4-for-4), by blasting a one-out, walk-off homer.

Tiffany McCrory picked up the win to improve to 8-3 on the year, while Grace Luginbuhl fell to 10-4.

Kortney Spidell lowered her ERA to 1.04 with seven scoreless innings.

The Vikings took control of the second game with four runs in the top of the first. Whitney Willard led off with a single and Christa Coppus, Penney and J.J. Thornberry followed with RBI doubles. Guyette capped off the scoring with a sacrifice fly.

CSU tacked on solo runs in the second and sixth frames and three more in the seventh to close out the scoring.

Coppus, Thornberry and Guyette each finished with two hits and a pair of RBI for the game.

Kortney Spidell tossed her third shutout of the season, surrendering just three hits to improve to 5-1.

Katie Gleiser gave up six hits and five runs in 1.1 innings to fall to 4-2.

Cleveland State returns to Horizon League play this weekend, as the Vikings travel to Loyola for a three-game series on April 8-9 in Chicago.