Cleveland, OH-The Cleveland State softball team won its seventh and eighth consecutive games in taking a doubleheader from Green Bay on Sunday at Viking Field. Cleveland State won the first game 2-1 in extra innings and took the second game 3-0 to complete the three-game weekend sweep after taking the opener on Saturday. The Vikings improve to 13-2 in Horizon League play and 18-14 overall and remain in first place in the league standings.
 
Strong pitching on both sides made runs hard to come by throughout the day but the Vikings got the timely hits when they needed them to earn the doubleheader sweep.
 
In the first game the Phoenix had the Vikings on the ropes. Green Bay took a 1-0 lead in the third inning and carried that lead into the final inning of regulation. Cleveland State trailed by a run headed into its final at bat in the bottom of the seventh when Destiny Ruggiero led off with a single to right field. She was lifted for a pinch runner in Marley Queen. Kyle Gorsuch sacrificed Queen to second and she remained there with two outs. Brooke Albaugh stepped up and with the Vikings down to their last strike delivered a seeing-eye ground ball single that scored Queen and tied the game at 1.
 
Both teams were held scoreless in the eighth and the Vikings hung another zero on the board in the top of the ninth. In the bottom half Haley West led off with a hit-by-pitch to reach first base. Following a Gorsuch strikeout Albaugh came up once again and delivered a base hit to right field. The ball squirted through the legs of Green Bay right fielder Jenna Redders and rolled to the wall for a game-ending error that allowed West to score the winning run.
 
Melissa Holzopfel earned her 12^th win of the season scattering seven hits in nine innings and yielding just one unearned run. Holzopfel recorded seven strikeouts and walked just one batter.
 
In game two the Vikings took the early lead as Peyton Mueller Stenz knocked in the first run of the game on an infield single. Mueller Stenz recorded two RBI hits on the day with the second one coming in the fifth inning on an RBI double to center field that scored Delaney Ellis.
 
The Vikings scored again in the sixth on a Sydney Shammo RBI single and the three runs were more than enough for Katie McDonald who recorded a four-hit shutout performance in the circle. McDonald went the distance striking out four and walking just one.
 
Cleveland State returns to action on Tuesday as the Vikings travel to Purdue Fort Wayne for a three-game midweek series. The two teams were supposed to meet last week but inclement weather shifted the series back a week. The first game is set for a noon first pitch on Tuesday.