ST. LOUIS – The Missouri Baptist softball team faced a struggling visiting William Woods Owls team and dropped two tough games by the score of 4-3 in the first and 7-1 in the second. These losses move the Spartans to fifth in the American Midwest Conference standings. 

In the first game, MBU faced a very good Owls pitcher in MacKenzie Bowden. Bowden set the tone early in the game, by striking out the side in the bottom of the first inning. In the second inning, AMC Player of the Week Danielle Bayer hit a single and later came around to score and give the Spartans a 1-0 lead.

In the top of the fourth for the Owls, Lindsey LeCuru hit a home run over the right-center field fence to tie the game at one. The Owls would add one more in the top of the fifth to take a one run lead until the bottom of the inning when the MBU bats came alive.

The Spartans leadoff hitter Megan Wildhaber hammered a 2-run home run over the left field fence to give the Spartans a 3-2 lead late in the game. However, the Owls would not go away. William Woods came up in the top of the seventh and strung together a little 2-out rally to score one and tie the game at three and force an extra inning. The Owls struck again in the top of the eighth inning and beat the Spartans 4-3.

Bowden threw a complete game with 11 strikeouts, walking none. For MBU, Jena Trombley threw a complete game as well, but allowed five walks while striking out four batters.

The Spartan bats were very quite in the second game of the day. The Owls used a big three run inning in the third and a four run inning in the fourth to tack seven runs on the Spartans and the hole was too deep for MBU to ever get out of.

MBU scored a run in the top of the seventh to avoid the shutout, but lost the game to the Owls 7-1. The Spartans had only five hits in the game.

Missouri Baptist will look to turn things around next week as they play a busy schedule ahead with doubleheaders on four days next week. The first will be Tuesday, April 9, at Lindenwood University. First pitch is set for 5:00 p.m.