Newman tosses gem as Eagles sweep Tritons

 
Junior second baseman Rachel Martinez (Chicago, Illinois) had a three-run double in the opener as the Screaming Eagles defeated the Tritons, 4-1, while home runs by sophomore first baseman Lexi Fair (Greenwood, Indiana) and junior pitcher/designated player Allie Goodin (Evansville, Indiana) capped off a 5-0 victory for the Eagles in the nightcap.
 
USI (38-10, 24-2 GLVC) struck first in the opening game as an RBI-single by junior shortstop Jordan Rager (Fishers, Indiana) in the top of the first inning put the Eagles up, 1-0.
 
The Tritons (27-20, 15-11 GLVC) wasted little time answering the Eagles’ tally as a solo home run off the bat of junior shortstop Irene Travis in the home half of the first tied the score at 1-1.
 
Martinez’s three-run double with two outs in the third broke the stalemate and gave Goodin plenty of cushion en route to her 10th win of the year.
 
Goodin (10-2) gave up just one run off four hits while striking out seven batters.
 
In game two, the Eagles broke a scoreless tie in the top of the fourth inning as a one-out double by sophomore catcher Sammie Kihega (Greenfield, Indiana), a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly by Martinez staked the Eagles to a 1-0 lead.
 
USI added to that tally in the next frame as Fair hit her team-leading eighth home run of the season to put the Eagles up, 2-0. Newman’s two-out single in the sixth drove in USI’s third run, while a two-run home run by Goodin in the seventh gave USI a 5-0 lead.
 
Newman (14-3), meanwhile, struck out 12 of the first 13 batters she faced before a one-out single in the fifth broke up her perfect-game bid. The Tritons took advantage of errors in the sixth and seventh innings to put a runner on base, but Newman never allowed the opposition to reach second base as she allowed just three base runners en route to her third 15-plus strikeout performance of the season.
 
The Eagles, who set the program’s single-season record for conference victories with their opening-game win, conclude the regular-season Sunday at noon when they visit Lindenwood University in a GLVC doubleheader in St. Charles, Missouri.