CEDAR CITY, Utah - The Thunderbirds split their doubleheader against the University of Montana on Saturday, with a 14-13 loss, and a 5-2 win.
After Saturday's competition the SUU sits with a 4-9 mark in the Big Sky Conference, and a 9-35 overall record.
“Losing the first game hurt, but coming back and winning the second game was a real gut check,” SUU head coach Tom Gray said.
SUU's bats came alive in the bottom of the second, scoring first in the competition. Kendall Kapitzke of the Thunderbirds homered to start things off, followed by four SUU hits giving the T-Birds a 4-0 lead.
“I thought we hit the ball well all day. Kendall was incredible but up and down the line up we had solid at bats,” Coach Gray said about his team's offense on Saturday.
Montana answered back with two runs in the top of the third making the score 4-2. The Thunderbirds came up big again in the third inning with five more runs.
Montana's bats came alive in the fifth and seventh inning, and the Thunderbirds could not answer. At the end of regulation the score was all tied up 13-13.
As the game went into extra innings Montana scored one in the eighth making it 13-14. Unfortunately for SUU, they could not put anymore runs on the board ending the competition in a Montana win.
The Thunderbirds did not hold back in game two of Saturday's competition. Although Montana got on the board first with one run in the top of the second, the Thunderbirds answered with two runs with the help of SUU's Morgan Leonard sending one out of the park.
SUU's Kirsten Hostetler allowed only five hits facing 26 batters. “Kirsten really battled in the second game,” Coach Gray said.
There were no more runs scored until the fifth inning with Montana scoring one run, and SUU coming up with three. Again Kendall Kapitzke came up big for the T-Birds with a three run homer to make the final score 5-2.
SUU will take on the University of Montana again on Sunday at noon.
Livestreams of the games will be available at WatchBigSky.com and updates can be followed on Twitter @SUUGameday.
Attendance to all home softball games is free of charge.
