(ALLIANCE, OH)--Mount Union's softball team swept a pair of games, 6-4 and 7-2, from John Carroll to take over second place in the Ohio Athletic Conference Tuesday at 23rd Street Field in Alliance.
The Purple Raiders cross the 20-win plateau with the sweep and now stand at 21-11 overall and at 9-3 in the OAC are three games behind No. 3 in the nation Ohio Northern (29-1, 12-0 OAC) in the conference standings. John Carroll is left at 18-14 overall and is alone in third in the OAC at 7-5.
In game one, freshman centerfielder Marissa Earl (Massillon/Massillon Washington) snapped a 4-4 tie in the bottom of the sixth inning with a two-out RBI single. Junior Alex Lucak (Maple Heights/Trinity) then hit an RBI single to bring Earl around for an insurance run and a 6-4 lead.
Sophomore hurler Bre Willis (Navarre/Fairless) then did the rest in the seventh inning as she shut down the Blue Streaks in order to finish off a complete game victory for her eighth win of the season.
Aside from her heroics in the sixth, Earl scored three runs and her other hit on the day was her first collegiate home run.
Senior Meghan Simons (Minerva/Minerva) also went 3-for-3 and drove in three runs with two coming on her team-leading seventh home run of the season.
Simons also got things going in the nightcap as she drove in a run in the first inning and fellow senior Anna Horning (Cuyahoga Falls/Woodridge) tripled to lead off the second then scored on a wild pitch to give the Raiders a 2-0 lead.
Horning then blew the game open in the fifth as she hit a three-run home run and Mount Union tacked on two more in the sixth to make it 7-0.
All of this was more than enough for freshman pitcher Rachel McAninch (West Jefferson/West Jefferson) who did not allow a John Carroll player to get past second base in the first six innings as she went the distance to improve to 12-1 for the year.
John Carroll avoided the shutout in the top of the seventh as Brittany Danilov hit a two-run home run.
Mount Union plays a pair of OAC doubleheaders this weekend traveling Saturday to Columbus to play Capital before returning home to face Marietta on Sunday. First pitch each day is slated for 1 pm.
