No. 6 Oregon State Splits Games at Palm Springs Classic

Photo: OSU Athletics

Cathedral City, Calif. - The No. 6 ranked Oregon State softball team split a pair of games in Friday’s action at the Palm Springs Classic.

The Beavers shutout Penn State, 5-0, before dropping a 2-0 decision to No. 7 ranked Northwestern.

The Beavers (7-3) got on the scoreboard early against Penn State, taking a 1-0 lead in the first inning when DeAnn Young drew a bases loaded walk.

Freshman Dani Chisholm’s sacrifice fly in the fourth inning and an RBI single by Lisa Hill in the bottom of the fifth extended the OSU lead to 3-0.

Junior All-American Cambria Miranda capped off the scoring when she roped an RBI triple to right-center field and eventually scored on the play after an errant throw, making it 5-0 in the sixth.

Chisholm finished the game with a 2-for-3 effort from the plate, while senior pitcher Brianne McGowan went 2-for-4 and struck out six Penn State batters.

Under blustery conditions with wind gusts of over 20-mph, the night-cap proved to be a pitcher’s dual between Oregon State’s Ta’Tyana McElroy and Northwestern’s Lauren Delaney.

McElroy struck out a batter in each of the first four innings, but the Wildcats used back-to-back hits and a pair of sacrifice flies in the top of the fourth to provide all of the scoring in the contest.

Senior shortstop Mia Longfellow led-off the bottom of the seventh inning with a single up-the-middle to bring the tying run to the plate.

Unfortunately for OSU, Miranda lined into a double play and Delaney closed the contest with a strikeout.

Young was the only other Beaver batter to pick up a hit in the contest. McElroy finished with seven strikeouts in the complete game.

Oregon State returns to action on Saturday with a 12:30 PM game against No. 9 Oklahoma and an 8:00 PM game against Virginia.

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